Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Limerick Markets Bill,

Lords Amendment considered, and agreed to.

Lymington Rural District Council Bill [Lords],

Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

London County Council (Money) Bill,

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

North Eastern Railway Bill [Lords].

As amended, to be considered Tomorrow.

Southend Water Bill [Lords],

Read a Second time, and committed.

County of London Electric Supply Company Bill [Lords] (by Order),

Second Reading deferred till Monday next.

Glasgow Deaf and Dumb Institution Order Confirmation Bill,

Considered; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — EX-ENEMY SHIPS (SALE).

Sir J. BUTCHER: 4.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the declared policy of the Government to sell ex-enemy ships allotted to the British Government only to British and Allied nationals has been abandoned; if so, what new policy has been adopted; whether before selling the 10 ex-German ships
recently sold to Germans any attempts were made to sell them to Allied or neutral nationals; and whether it is proposed to sell any other ex-German ships to Germans?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir W. Mitchell-Thomson): The circumstances relating to the sale of the 10 ex-German ships were stated in the answer given to the hon. Baronet on 20th June, and also in a letter by Lord Inchcape which appeared in the "Times" of the same day. As regards the future, it will be seen from the advertisements issued by Lord Inchcape, who is selling the ex-enemy vessels on behalf of the Reparation Commission, that up to 30th June offers, will be received from British nationals, but offers for vessels unsold at that date will then be received from foreign as well as from British buyers.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Has the hon. Gentleman's Department consulted the Chamber of Shipping as to the desirability of having the benefits of these sales preserved for British and Allied nationals rather than for Germans?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I do not doubt that Lord Inchcape has that consideration in mind.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Will my hon. Friend see that before this entirely new policy is adopted the experience and advice of the Chamber of Shipping is asked for?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I must say during the period these vessels have been on sale ample opportunity has been given to any person desiring to buy them in this country.

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Is the hon. Baronet aware that German owners who may buy these vessels will be able to run them at less than half the running cost British shipowners will run them as at present?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I must have notice of that question.

Oral Answers to Questions — BUTTER AND SUGAR STOCKS.

Mr. GILBERT: 8.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Government still hold stocks of butter in this
country and, if so, can be give, approximately, the quantity held here and at what price it is being offered to the trade; can he state if there are still any stocks to arrive in this country from any contracts placed with the Dominion or other governments; and if he can state, approximately, what quantity has still to be delivered under such contracts?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The Government still hold stocks of butter, but for reasons frequently explained to the House it is not desirable, while liquidation is in progress, to disclose stocks. The quantity of butter afloat from Australasia and lying unshipped in New Zealand amounts to approximately 8,000 tons. I am sending a copy of the current price list to the hon. Member.

Mr. GILBERT: 9.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if the Government still hold stocks of sugar in this country or on the way here, and, if so, will he state approximately what quantity is still held in stock on Government account and what measures his Department are taking for the disposal of the same; and if it is being offered for sale at current market prices?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The stocks of sugar purchased on Government account, arrived or expected to arrive in this country, amount to 304,635 tons. With regard to the disposal of these stocks, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given on 12th April to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (West).

Oral Answers to Questions — PEACE TREATIES.

MIXED ARBITRAL TRIBUNAL.

Sir CYRIL COBB: 15.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade if he will give the date upon which the Mixed Arbitral Tribunal under the Treaty of Peace was instituted; where it sits; how many cases are down for hearing; how many cases have been heard; and how many cases have been decided?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: The Anglo-German Arbitral Tribunal was constituted in November, 1920, and sits
at Winchester House, St. James's Square, S.W.1. Up to the present 29 cases have been set down for hearing, three of which have been argued, and in two of these judgment has been delivered.

Mr. KILEY: Is it a fact that a little time ago this Committee suspended its sittings, and is it intended that they shall be resumed at an early date?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I do not think so.

Mr. KILEY: There is an announcement in the Press to that effect.

UPPER SILESIA.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 26.
asked the Prime Minister what further progress has been made by the Allies with the enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles in respect to Upper Silesia; whether he adheres to the policy of His Majesty's Government as last explained by him to this House; and when he will be in a position to make a further statement?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN (Leader of the House): Negotiations having for their object the withdrawal by consent of the Polish insurgents and the German self-defence organisations are in progress between the Inter-Allied Commission and the representatives of the parties. The policy of His Majesty's Government has undergone no change since my last statement on this subject. I am unable to say when it will be possible to make a further statement.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 27.
asked the Prime Minister if he is aware that the towns and villages of Kostellitz, Wachowitz, Fei-Pipa, Fei-Kadlub, Schemrowitz, Waldhaeuser, Hohenbirken, Bukan, and Markowitz, in Upper Silesia, have been evacuated by the German defence forces on the demand of the Allied troops, and have since been occupied by the Polish insurgents, who are inflicting reprisals on the civil population; whether the Allied troops are taking steps or have taken steps to compel the Poles to evacuate these towns and villages; and why orders are not given to the Allied commanders to keep order impartially?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The villages of Kostellitz, Wachowitz, and Fei-Pipa were
taken by the Polish insurgents at the inception of the movement. The remaining villages quoted are not in the hands of the insurgents. Waldhausen is actually occupied by British troops. The Allied commanders understand clearly that they are to keep order impartially.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that order has not been kept impartially, and that the Poles have been favoured by, at any rate, one of the Allies, and the Germans disfavoured?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, I cannot accept the hon. and gallant Gentleman's statement.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is it not notorious that the Polish insurgents have been favoured by one of the Allies?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is repeating the question in another form.

GERMAN REPARATION (PAYMENT IN KIND).

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: 35.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is in a position to form any estimate of the quantity of timber, zinc, potash, and sugar which Germany could supply to this country in reduction of her financial obligations under the Treaty of Versailles; and whether, having regard to the fact that the exportation of such commodities to Britain would not compete with home industries, he will consider the propriety of enforcing this method of payment upon Germany?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No estimates have been framed on the lines suggested in the first part of the question, but the Reparation Commission is considering how far Germany's reparation liabilities can be satisfied in kind.

Mr. G. W. H. JONES: 37.
asked the Prime Minister when claims by British subjects which are registered in the Reparation Claims Department of the Board of Trade for submission to the Grants Commission are likely to be dealt with, and when he anticipates that any reparation receipts from Germany will be available for the purpose of satisfying such claims; and when the claims of British subjects in respect of damage to property which are matters of compensa-
tion under the economic clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and registered in the Clearing Office for settlement are likely to be paid?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hilton Young): I have been asked to reply. As regards the first and second parts of the question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave on the 20th instant to the hon. and gallant Member for Leith. As regards the third part, I am informed that the claims by British subjects for compensation in respect of damage to their property in Germany have to be adjudicated upon by the mixed arbitral tribunal, but that in order to save time and argument before the tribunal the British Clearing Office will be prepared to give their assistance to claimants in agreeing claims with the German authorities for submission to the tribunal for confirmation. As a result of recent negotiations with the German Government it is hoped that the payment of the compensation that is awarded may be accelerated.

Sir N. MOORE: 93.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the £5,000,000 mentioned by his predecessor on 4th May, 1920, as purposed to be set apart for the satisfaction of claims in respect of civilian damage resulting from enemy action would be sufficient to satisfy all the claims the Government have received and admitted and upon which this part of the British claim against Germany was based; whether the Government has yet received sufficient money from Germany in respect of reparations to set aside the said £5,000,000; if so, when will the Commission be appointed to deal with the claims; whether the Government has yet received sufficient money to set aside the £5,000,000; and, if not, when do they expect to receive it?

Mr. YOUNG: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to the hon. and gallant Member for Leith on the 20th June.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: 3.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can give any information as to the intention of the German Government in respect to the rate of exchange at which that Government will indemnify German traders for the 26 per cent. duty levied on goods exported from Germany
and consigned to the United Kingdom; and, if he has no information, will he allow inquiries to be made of the German authorities?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME (Secretary, Department of Overseas Trade): I am informed that an official announcement has new been issued by the German Ministry of Finance that German exporters, on producing a British certificate of the amount levied and necessary details, will be reimbursed in respect of any levy collected since 12th May last in German currency at the rate of exchange prevailing on the day when the certificate was issued.

Mr. MYERS: 14.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he can state the weight of German dyes which have been contributed by Germany in connection with reparation; the cost of these dyes to the Government at the time of placing them on the market; and the prices being charged to the trade?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: The total weight of synthetic dyestuffs received up to the present for the British Empire under the Reparation Clauses of the Treaty of Versailles is approximately 4,053 tons, and the total value credited to Germany is about 110 million paper marks, to which must be added cost of carriage, storage and distribution. The prices charged to the trade—which, of course, vary according to the classes and brands of dyestuffs—are as nearly as possible the market prices ruling at the time of sale, and have been fixed in consultation with representatives of the consumers.

GERMAN WAR CRIMINALS (TRIAL).

Sir F. HALL: 44.
asked the Lord Privy Seal whether Captain-Lieutenant Neumann, who was charged at Leipzig with the crime of torpedoing the hospital ship "Dover Castle," was acquitted partly on the ground that such action is justified in the case of a ship used for the conveyance of soldiers wounded in a land battle; and whether, in view of the gravity of the position which this decision creates by legalising such an act of inhumanity, the Government proposes to take steps for the question to be considered by the League of Nations, with a view to an international agreement being come to on the subject?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Ernest Pollock): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The second part does not arise.

Sir F. HALL: Do the Government intend to leave the matter entirely where it is at the present time? Are they satisfied with the manner in which these trials have been conducted in Leipzig? Are they satisfied that one large Power like Germany should have special arrangements by which their officers can be exonerated from liability in a case such as the one referred to?

Sir E. POLLOCK: I have answered the first part of the supplementary question on many occasions, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has done the same. I think the hon. Member has rather imperfectly understood the answer to the question. Some confusion has taken place between the arguments presented on behalf of the accused and the judgment of the Court. The judgment of the Court did not accept the view presented in the first part of the question.

Sir F. HALL: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman think that it is advisable in the interests of humanity that one Power should have special privileges, such as Germany apparently has, by the decision arrived at by the Leipzig Court?

Sir J. D. REES: Is the hon. Member right in supposing that the League of Nations will settle the laws of war as well as the laws of labour?

Sir F. HALL: May I point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that it was at the request of the Government I put this question down for to-day? Considering the circumstances, does not my right hon. and learned Friend think that some reply should be given to the question, and not leave it in the vague manner in which it stands at present, in which we do not know anything?

Mr. SPEAKER: The question was precisely answered.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY DISPUTE.

COMPULSORY ARBITRATION.

Major MALONE: 29.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the misery caused through unemployment and the
damage to our national trade consequent on the dispute in the coal industry, he is prepared to introduce immediate legislation to compel the parties concerned to submit their dispute to an impartial board of arbitration, whose decision should be binding on both?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I agree that the damage caused to trade by the coal stoppage leads to very serious consideration as to methods by which it may fairly be brought to an end; but I am not prepared, as circumstances are at present, to introduce legislation for the purpose indicated by my hon. and gallant Friend.

MINERS (ALIENS).

Sir C. COBB: 19.
asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is able to state the number of miners in the mines of England, Scotland, and Wales, respectively, who are aliens or the immediate descendants of aliens; if not, whether such information will be available from the Census Returns when they are duly tabulated; and whether his Department has any plans for repatriating those registered as aliens to their various countries of origin as undesirables?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): I have been asked to reply to this question. No figures later than those of the 1911 Census are available. There were then 1,144 aliens working in mines and quarries in England and Wales and 2,921 in Scotland. "Immediate descendants" is a phrase of uncertain extension, and no figures are available on this point. Statistics of alien miners will be available when the Census Returns of 1921 are tabulated; but it should be clearly understood that the Census Returns are confidential and cannot be used as the basis for repatriation.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Does the calling of a miner render an alien undesirable and liable to deportation, as asked in the question?

Mr. KILEY: Has the right hon. Gentleman any information as to the number of British subjects engaged in mining in different parts of the world?

Mr. SHORTT: No, I cannot give that information. It depends on the individual, of course.

Mr. LAWSON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these men are the descendants of people who were brought in by coalowners in previous years with the object of breaking previous strikes?

Mr. SHORTT: No, Sir.

IMPORTS.

Mr. GILBERT: 18.
asked the Secretary for Mines whether he can state approximately the quantity of coal that has been imported into this country from the United States, France, Belgium, and Germany since the coal dispute has existed this year?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Bridgeman): The quantities of coal recorded as imported into this country from the United States, France, and Belgium since 1st April are approximately as follow:


United States
335,000 tons.


France
430,000 tons.


Belgium
495,000 tons


Of the coal imported from France and Belgium some 160,000 tons is known to be of German origin.

PROTECTION OF WORKERS.

Colonel NEWMAN: 91.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, seeing that the freedom of the individual is still secured by Section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, which makes liable to a fine or imprisonment a person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing any act which such other person has a legal right to do, uses violence or intimidation or besets his house or follows him about with other persons in a disorderly manner, he will say why the protection of this Section is not afforded to these persons who in a peaceful and orderly manner have recently desired to resume their occupation in the coal-mining industry?

Mr. SHORTT: The police have instructions to give, and are giving, such protection to the utmost extent which is possible with the forces at their disposal; and in many cases they have the assistance of the military forces of the Crown.

SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATIONS (GOVERNMENT OFFER OF £10,000,000).

Mr. G. LOCKER-LAMPSON: (by Private Notice) asked the Leader of the
House whether he will give the House an opportunity of deciding the question of the payment of a subsidy to the miners out of public funds before any pledge is given outside this House in the matter?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot at present say whether the resumed conferences will lead to anything, but if it should appear that the terms of a permanent settlement had been reached between the owners and the miners, and that the only obstacle to the immediate resumption of work was the impossibility of carrying out the necessary reductions without some assistance from public funds, I hope that the House will not think it necessary so to fetter the discretion of the negotiating Ministers as to make a prolongation of the struggle unavoidable. In that case, I would bring the matter before the House on the earliest day possible.
I beg the House to remember that I have been asked a purely hypothetical question. There is really a good deal of difficulty and some danger in answering questions of the kind in relation to results of negotiations which have only just begun. Should the contingency arise in the course of this week, I should propose to bring the matter before the House on Friday next.

Colonel ASHLEY: May I ask whether the agricultural labourers will receive the same treatment?

Mr. J. JONES: Why not?

Mr. WILSON-FOX: Will the Government consider very carefully the manner in which any assistance is to be given, and take pains to limit that assistance to the smallest possible amount?

Mr. W. THORNE: You think you have them on their bellies, and wish to get them right down now.

Mr. LAWSON: The matter is not quite finished yet!

Mr. J. JONES: Hon. Members opposite are being subsidised all the time!

PROFITEERING ACTS (EXPLOSIVE INDUSTRY).

Mr. LAWSON: 28.
asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the Report on the Explosive
Industry of the Sub-Committee appointed under the Profiteering Acts to the effect that the Nobel combine practically control the policy of the various trade associations in the industry, and is thus able to substantially determine the prices at which explosives and detonators are sold in this country, and that the present agreement of the Treasury and the Board of Trade with the combine does not appear to afford a workable scheme of control or supervision; and whether he will put into force the recommendation of the Committee that the powers of the Board of Trade should be supplemented by statutory authority to require from the combine any information which may be necessary to enable review to be made of its operations and prices, and to enable the Board to make recommendations for the adequate protection of the consumer?

Sir W. MITCHELL-THOMSON: I have been asked to reply. I am aware of the recommendations of the Committee, which are of the nature indicated by the hon. Member. The question of vesting in the Board of Trade the additional powers suggested by the Committee will be considered in connection with the general legislation on trusts which the Government hope to introduce in due course.

COAL (BREWING AND DISTILLING).

Mr. GALBRAITH: 17.
asked the Secretary for Mines the quantity of coal used in brewing and distilling in the United Kingdom for the purpose of malting, brewing, distilling, and transport during the calendar year 1920?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I regret that this information is not available.

HIGH COURT JUDGES (SALARIES).

Sir R. THOMAS: 25.
asked the Prime Minister whether, having regard to the fact that the salary of a High Court Judge, after deduction of Income Tax and Super-tax, is only about £3,000, it is the intention of the Government to increase such salary?

Sir E. POLLOCK: The matter is still under consideration.

Sir R. THOMAS: Is it not time the matter should really be decided? It has been under consideration for a very long time.

Sir F. FLANNERY: Is there any sound reason why Judges of the High Court have their Income Tax and Super-tax paid by the State any more than the Income Tax and Super-tax of other officials?

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT STAFFS AND OFFICES.

MINES DEPARTMENT.

Colonel Sir H. NORRIS: 20.
asked the Secretary for Mines if he will state the names of the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly newspapers, journals, books, and other periodicals or bound volumes supplied to his Department?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: In accordance with normal practice, the Mines Department is supplied with copies of the newspapers, journals, books, and other periodicals which are likely to be of importance in the work of the Department. It is hardly practicable to set out a list of them within the compass of an answer to a question, but I will show the hon. and gallant Member a list should he so desire.

MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT.

Sir W. DAVISON: 22.
asked the Minister of Transport whether a representative of the Treasury is attached to his Department at a salary of £5,000 a year; when was this official appointed; what are his duties; by whom was the remuneration fixed; and when will the appointment terminate?

Mr. YOUNG: I have been asked to reply. A Treasury representative is employed within the Ministry of Transport for the purpose of supervising the various financial transactions of that Department from a Treasury point of view. This officer was appointed for a term of three years in August, 1919, when the Ministry of Transport Bill was passed into law. His salary, which is of the amount stated in my hon. Friend's question, was fixed by the Board of Treasury and has been submitted to the approval of this House in the Treasury Vote.

Sir W. DAVISON: Are we to understand that the Minister of Transport is
paid £5,000 a year to watch the railway companies, and the Treasury appoint another official at £5,000 to watch the Minister of Transport? Will the Minister of Transport say whether he is familiar with the old adage of "big fleas having, little fleas upon their backs to bite them," and why is his Department so largely composed of big bugs, all of whom are eating into the finances of the country?

OVERSEAS TRADE DEPARTMENT.

Sir NEWTON MOORE: 57.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas. Trade Department how many officials are employed in his Department, administrative and clerical; what number have had business experience in the export and import trade; and what percentage have made a study of trade conditions overseas in the Dominions and foreign countries?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: The total number of administrative and clerical officials (excluding typists) employed by the Department of Overseas Trade in this country is 434. Of this total the class of market and trade officers, on whom the Department relies for expert commercial knowledge, numbers 104. Forty-eight of these market and trade officers had had business experience in the import or export trade before joining the Department; the remainder have acquired their special knowledge while in its service. About 57 per cent. of these officers and the directing staff have made a study abroad of trade conditions.

Sir N. MOORE: Is the 57 per cent. referred to in the answer only 50 per cent. of the 44 who have knowledge of export trade?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I gave the percentage which had actual experience of export and import trade, and I gave the percentage of those who had had opportunity of studying conditions actually overseas. It represented 57 per cent. of 104.

Mr. HOGGE: How many of those who have had experience of foreign trade are civil servants, and how many of the men who have been added to the Overseas Department, temporarily, are ex-service men?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should put down that question.

POST OFFICE (BOY MESSENGERS).

Major BIRCHALL: 75.
asked the Postmaster-General how many boys of the age of 14–15 are employed by his Department at a wage, including bonus, of 21s. 3d. a week and upwards; and why these boys are paid more than twice as much as the boys employed by the District Messenger Service?

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Pike Pease): Boy messengers under 15 years of age employed within the London postal area are paid wages of 8s. a week, which, with the current bonus addition, amount to 21s. 3d. a week. On 1st September the wages, by the operation of the sliding scale bonus, will be reduced to about 18s. a week. The total number of such boys employed on the 31st March last, the latest date for which statistics are available, was 692. I have no definite information regarding the remuneration of boys employed by the District Messenger Service.

Mr. J. JONES: Will the hon. Gentleman inform us how it is possible for a working-class family to keep a boy on the wages paid by the District Messenger Service?

Mr. PEASE: The Post Office wage will be 18s. for a boy under 15 years of age.

Colonel ASHLEY: Does the Post Office propose seriously to pay boys under 15 a wage of 18s. a week after the beginning of September?

Mr. PEASE: In reference to the comparison made, I have not the present exact figures of the District Messenger Service. For last July the wages paid were 12s. and 12s. 6d. per week. Of course, these boys get tips, but the Post Office boys do not.

Mr. JONES: Would hon. Members keep their own boys on the money offered?

Mr. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the question.

Mr. JONES: The boys of hon. Members get more in pocket money than the wages we can get for our children.

MINISTRIES OF PENSIONS AND LABOUR, AND INLAND REVENUE.

Mr. MOSLEY: 80.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the number of the staffs employed at the Ministry of
pensions, the Ministry of Labour, and the Inland Revenue Department, respectively, on the 1st April last; and the increase and decrease in each case as compared with the number employed on the 1st October, 1920?

Mr. YOUNG: The figures are as follow:


—
1st Oct., 1920.
1st April, 1921.
Increase.


Ministry of Pensions.
25,955
26,045
90


Ministry of Labour.
15,863
24,354
8,491


Inland Revenue
20,736
21,557
821

PUBLIC TRUSTEE DEPARTMENT.

Viscountess ASTOR: 94.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the regrading scheme of the Department of the Public Trustee has yet been ratified; and, if so, what number of executive posts it provides for its women clerks, in view of the reiterated assurances given that the recommendations in paragraph 67 of the Reorganisation Report as to the assimilation of women clerks to the executive grade would take place on regarding?

Mr. YOUNG: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative, and accordingly, it is not yet possible to give a reply to the second part.

MINISTRY OF HEALTH.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. HOARE: 81.
asked the Minister of Health whether he has any first-class women clerks who have been interchangeable with intermediate clerks and any first-class women clerks who have been interchangeable with supervising assistant clerks; and, if so, how it has been possible to assimilate the male clerks to the executive and higher clerical grades, respectively, before the regrading schemes have been ratified, when it is not possible to assimilate the women clerks to the same grades until after the number of posts available on reorganisation is known?

The MINISTER of HEALTH (Sir Alfred Mond): As stated in my reply to the hon. and gallant Member on 2nd June, the clerks in question, both male and female, have been assimilated into the grades recommended in the Report
of the Joint Committee of the National Whitley Council. Pending the coming into operation of the reorganisation scheme for the Ministry of Health, no other action was open to me. When the scheme is approved and I am in a position to deal with regrading as distinct from assimilation, the claims of all clerks who are competent to perform duties appropriate to higher grades will receive the fullest consideration.

Sir S. HOARE: Do I understand from that answer that the claims of these women will be in no way prejudiced by the delay?

Sir A. MOND: Yes, certainly. They will not be prejudiced.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

BEER AND WINES (RAILWAY TRAFFIC).

Mr. GALBRAITH: 23.
asked the Minister of Transport the weight of ale and beer, and spirits and wine, carried on the railways of the United Kingdom during the calendar year 1920?

The MINISTER of TRANSPORT (Sir Eric Geddes): The tonnage of ale and porter, including empties, charged at station-to-station rates conveyed by railways in the United Kingdom during the year 1920 was 1,678,000 tons. The tonnage of wines and spirits conveyed at rates including collection and delivery was 327,000 tons.

OIL FUEL (RAILWAYS).

Mr. PERCY: 49.
asked the Minister of Transport to what extent has oil been, and is being, substituted for coal in locomotives on the railways of the United Kingdom; and how far has the change been favourable, or otherwise, in view of efficiency and cost as compared with coal?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I will answer this for my right hon. Friend (Sir E. Geddes), who has had to go away to a Committee. With regard to the first part of the question, particulars furnished show that 116 locomotives have been fitted with oil-burning apparatus, and that a further seven are in course of adaptation. Sufficient experience has not yet been obtained to enable me to answer the second part of the question.

WOMEN AND CHILDREN (GENEVA CONFERENCE).

Viscountess ASTOR: 30.
asked the Prime Minister whether he is aware that the Government of Denmark has appointed a woman as full voting delegate to the conference on the traffic in women and children which meets in Geneva on 30th June and that the French Government has appointed a woman as alternate delegate; and whether he will again consider the desirability of appointing a woman either as alternate delegate or as technical adviser, so that Great Britain may be as adequately represented as these other countries?

Mr. SHORTT: My right hon. Friend has asked me to reply to this question. I am informed that the French Government has appointed a lady as assistant delegate. I have no information with regard to Denmark. In the circumstances which I explained in my reply to the hon. Member's previous question on the 9th June, I do not consider it necessary to appoint a woman adviser to the British delegation.

Viscountess ASTOR: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that the woman representing France is a Government official, and that we have no official representative there? That is the difference.

HOUSE OF LORDS (REFORM PROPOSALS).

Sir F. HALL: 31.
asked the Prime Minister when the Government propose to fulfil the repeated pledges to introduce legislation to provide for the re-constitution of the House of Lords?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My hon. and gallant Friend must know that it is impossible to deal with a question of this magnitude and importance this Session, but we hope to submit our proposals early next Session.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Government have decided to this extent, that under the new reform of the House of Lords Ministers will be entitled to sit in either House, and that therefore we may look forward to seeing the Lord Chancellor here again shortly?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I think it would be inadvisable to disclose the proposals of His Majesty's Government.

Colonel ASHLEY: Are we to understand that the reform of the House of Lords will be the first item of the Government's programme for next year?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: As far as I can forecast the programme of the future Session of Parliament, it will be our main legislative proposal.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: If there is to be an Autumn Session, will the Government be able to implement the pledge this year, seeing that they may never have another Session?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: There is not to be an Autumn Session.

Mr. W. THORNE: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think this is the last Parliamentary Session of this Government?

LIMITATION OF ARMAMENTS.

Commander BELLAIRS: 38.
asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been drawn to a statement of the Japanese Minister of Marine to the Associated Press of America that, should the Powers come to a reliable understanding and agree unanimously to limit their armaments, Japan would limit her armaments to a certain extent and would not necessarily insist on the completion of her programme; and whether the Government will ascertain if this statement would apply to a naval agreement to which Great Britain and the United States are parties?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I have seen the statement referred to, and have noted its importance, but I cannot add anything at this moment to what was said by me in this House on Friday, the 17th instant, and by the Prime Minister at the opening of the Imperial Conference on the Monday following.

ANGLO-JAPANESE AGREEMENT.

Commander BELLAIRS: 42.
asked the Prime Minister whether it has ever been officially intimated to the United States of America, by means of a diplomatic Note, that in no circumstances can Japan receive support from this country under the terms of the alliance in the event of a war between Japan and the United States of America?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The United States Government are so fully acquainted with the real position that it has not been thought necessary to inform them of it in an official Note.

NAVY ESTIMATES.

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: 45.
asked the Lord Privy Seal when it is intended to bring Votes 8, 9, and 12 of the Navy Estimates forward for discussion in Committee?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: It would not be convenient for the House—and it is the convenience of the House which guides me in such matters—to allocate Supply Days far in advance, and I am, therefore, not yet in a position to name a day for a resumed discussion on the Naval Estimates.

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Resolutions of the Imperial Conference in respect of the Imperial Navy will be laid before this House before the Votes are brought on?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot say. That depends upon two factors, both of which are indeterminate—the time when the Imperial Conference comes to a decision, and the time when the Votes are taken.

Rear-Admiral ADAIR: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether this question of a real Imperial Navy is being thoroughly discussed by the Imperial Conference?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: The question of military, naval, and air defence, in its relation to the Empire, is one of the subjects proposed to be discussed by the Conference.

Mr. LAMBERT: May we take it that Votes 8, 9, and 12 will be discussed before the end of the Session?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not quite sure how many allotted days there are left; but there are some allotted days for supply, and if these Votes are asked for on one of those days that will be done.

Mr. LAMBERT: Is it fair to the House when we want to discuss all these Naval Estimates, which are extremely import-
ant, that it should depend upon the will of two right hon. Gentlemen as to whether there is a discussion or not?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: My hon. Friend and I do our best to meet the wishes of the House. It always has been customary to leave the chief say in deciding what Votes should be taken to the party or parties in opposition. That is probably the arrangement which best serves the interests of the House.

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: May we have a voice in the matter?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I am glad to hear that my hon. Friend dissociates himself from the parties in opposition.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Is it not right, in deciding as to the discussion of these great Imperial questions, that the party which represents the great majority should have a choice in saying what is to be discussed?

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is not that the party which is in opposition to-day?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: As far as I am informed of the practice of the House, I am sure that what my hon. and learned Friend has referred to is one of the factors which are taken into account by those who arrange these matters.

Oral Answers to Questions — IRELAND.

SEIZURE OF GUNS (NEW YORK).

Sir F. HALL: 50.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the New York Customs Authorities have seized 600 Thomson machine guns which the Irish Republican faction were about to ship to Ireland; whether he has any information indicating that this large number of guns was manufactured by the American firms concerned in ignorance of their intended destination and the purpose for which they were to be used; whether previous to this incident the Government has reason to suppose that other consignments of munitions have been shipped from America for use by the Sinn Feiners in Ireland; and whether a protest has been made to the American Government against the manufacture and supply of arms to the Irish rebels?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Cecil Harmsworth): Some 500 machine guns, with a number of rifles and a quantity of ammunition, were seized by the New York Customs Authorities on 15th June. There is every reason to believe that the articles seized were intended to be sent to Ireland, but, as the whole matter is now under investigation by the United States judicial authorities, a statement on the subject would be premature.

Sir F. HALL: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the last part of my question? Has any protest been made to the American Government?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: No occasion for protest has arisen.

Sir F. HALL: Does my hon. Friend say it is the ordinary custom that should obtain between two friendly nations that one is to be allowed without protest to send arms into the other?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: My hon. and gallant Friend is entirely mistaken. No such action has been taken by the American Government.

Mr. J. JONES: Can the hon. Gentleman say the number of German guns that were sent to Ulster in 1914, and was any protest made then?

PRISONERS (SCOTLAND).

Mr. DEVLIN: 70.
asked the Secretary for Scotland whether his attention has been called to the treatment of untried Irish prisoners at present detained in Scottish prisons; whether the Irish prisoners awaiting trial in Duke Street prison, Glasgow, were confined in their cells for 23 out of the 24 hours a day; and whether, in view of the undesirability of applying such close confinement to prisoners awaiting trial, he will cause inquiries to be made into the matter with a view to allowing better conditions to those prisoners who are detained awaiting trial, and have not yet been found guilty of any charge?

The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Morison): The attention of my right hon. Friend had not been called to the matter referred to in the first part of the question. The present period of exercise for untried male prisoners at Duke Street prison is 1¼ hours daily, and untried Irish prisoners receive the
same treatment as other untried prisoners. By the Statutory Rules for Prisons in Scotland the length of time of exercise is regulated by the medical officer. My right hon. Friend has made inquiry, and learns that a few days ago one of the Prison Commissioners visited the Irish prisoners and asked if they had any complaint to make, and in all cases was answered in the negative.

NORTHERN PARLIAMENT.

Mr. DEVLIN: 82.
asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland what is the cost to the State of the opening of the Northern Parliament for Ireland, including naval, military, police, and other forces which were requisitioned for the occasion?

The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood): I do not know the exact cost to the State of the opening of the Northern Parliament. Whatever the precise figure may be, it is negligible compared with the beneficent result of the Royal visit.

Mr. DEVLIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my question and not make replies to something which is not on the Paper at all?, I have asked when can we have these figures?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I endeavoured to answer the question. I do not know, and I cannot ascertain without an enormous amount of detailed labour involving a great number of Departments, the exact cost of the opening of the Northern Parliament. I do not think I would be justified in undertaking this enormous and detailed work at the present time in Ireland. I am convinced any extra cost incurred owing to the Royal visit was negligible.

Mr. DEVLIN: May I ask, in view of all that occurred in connection with the Royal visit, whether the spending of all this money on military and naval forces was not another instance of squandermania?

SEIZURE OF DOCUMENTS, BALLINAGLERA.

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: 83.
asked the Chief Secretary if his attention has been called to the fact that in the Presbytery Church, Ballinaglera, County Leitrim, on the 5th June last, the head of the police force in County Leitrim dragged the people off their knees in the middle of Mass and drove them outside the Church; and whether the Government will
take steps to ensure that behaviour of this sort does not occur again?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I am informed that a party of Crown forces surrounded Ballinaglera Chapel during Mass on 5th June with a view to searching for wanted men after Mass was over. Directly they arrived one man sitting just inside the door was seen to pass a bundle of papers to another and he in turn was about to pass it to a woman when it was intercepted. The two men involved in this incident were touched on the shoulder and requested to come outside, which they did. This is the only foundation for the allegation that people were dragged off their knees and driven out of church. No other persons left their seats till the conclusion of the service, which was in no way interrupted and went an without a pause to its conclusion. The documents seized were of a seditious character and were retained by the police.

MILITARY OPERATIONS.

Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: 84.
asked the Chief Secretary whether a young man named Edward Doherty, of Coreffrin, Ballybofey, County Donegal, was chased from his house on Thursday the 2nd June, 1921, and shot dead by the military; that a solicitor requested to be present at the military inquiry in lieu of the inquest, held at Drumboe Castle on the 4th June, and was refused admission; if he will say whether any of the local constabulary, who knew the deceased and were present at the castle when the inquiry was held, were called as witnesses; what witnesses were called and what was the finding of the military inquiry; whether, in view of the fact of his having been killed wantonly one and a half miles from the scene of an alleged ambush, that he belonged to no society, legal or otherwise, he being chased from his house by the military, any compensation will be given by the Government; whether he is aware that James McCarron, of Ballybofey, who was killed on the same date, had a good War record, entering the Service on 19th April, 1915, was wounded at the Somme battle, 1916, and invalided home, again returned and was wounded at Givenchy, and was finally discharged on pension on 10th January, 1919; if he will say whether any of these facts were brought forth at the military inquiry; and whether the arrears of his pension will be paid to his father, James McCarron, of Ballybofey?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: A party of Crown forces proceeding to Drumboe on 2nd June were stopped by a barrier of stones which had been placed across the road. As they were alighting from their car to investigate they were fired upon at close range and four men were seen running away. These men were fired upon and James McCarron was killed. Sixteen rounds of ammunition were found in his pocket. McCarron is described in the police report as an ex-soldier and captain in the Irish Republican Army. After obtaining reinforcements the Crown forces proceeded to search the neighbourhood and visited, among others, the house of Edward Doherty. As the door was opened Doherty ran out. He was challenged three times and three shots were fired in the air. As he still did not stop, he was fired at and wounded, and died in hospital some hours later. The court of inquiry found that both men were shot by Crown forces in the execution of their duty. I must decline, for obvious reasons, to give the names of witnesses who were examined during the inquiries, but as regards the allegation that a solicitor was refused admission I am having inquiry made. The last part of the question should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions.

ARRESTS.

Mr. DEVLIN: 85.
asked the Chief Secretary whether nine young men were arrested and have been detained in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, since 28th May last, on suspicion of being concerned in a raid on the post office at Kells, County Meath; and whether, seeing that it is unfair to keep these young men in prison without trial for such a length of time, and since no charge has been made against them, they will be immediately liberated?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: Nine men were arrested between 27th and 29th ultimo for the attack on Kells post office. They are now in Mountjoy Prison. Their cases are under investigation, and action will be taken as soon as possible.

Mr. DEVLIN: When will these men be tried? Is it not quite a customary thing for the Irish Government to keep innocent men in prison for a long time and not to try them at all?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: It is not.

MURDERS.

Mr. LAWSON: 86.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he has any information about the case of two men named John and Patrick Watters, who were taken from their house in Dundalk on the 19th instant by a party of men stated to have been wearing trench coats, placed against a wall and shot; and whether their murderers have yet been traced?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I have not yet received the full report of the proceedings of the Court of Inquiry, but I am informed that the Court found that these men were wilfully murdered by some person or persons unknown. I regret to say that no arrests have been made.

Mr. DEVLIN: Have any arrests ever been made of men who have killed civilians?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: Yes.

Mr. DEVLIN: When?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: Put down a question.

Mr. DEVLIN: If I put down a question, I shall not get an answer.

KIDNAPPINGS.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: 87.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he has any information with reference to the fate of Major de Berry, who was kidnapped on the 21st June; and whether he has any information relating to Constable George Duckham, who was kidnapped on the 22nd June near Clondrohid Cross?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: I regret that no information has been received as to the fate or whereabouts of Major de Berry or Constable Duckham. Every effort is being made to trace these officers.

BURNINGS, BANDON AND SKIBBEREEN.

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: 88.
asked the Chief Secretary whether he has any information as to the burning of Skibbereen workhouse and of Bandon workhouse on the 22nd and 23rd of June?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: am not yet in a position to give full particulars of these cases, but the Commander-in-Chief informs me that he has received a telegraphic report that Bandon Workhouse
was seized by the rebels on the 23rd June. They remained for about an hour, and burned the building on leaving.

INTERNED SINN FEINERS (TREATMENT).

Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEE: 89.
asked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether interned Sinn Feiners, many of whom are suspected to be murderers, are being treated as political prisoners, and that in many cases they are being allowed to receive luxurious food from the Irish White Cross Society, although they are receiving at the same time the same rations as British soldiers and officers; and whether this practice can be discontinued?

Sir H. GREENWOOD: Persons interned in internment camps are being well treated, receiving as they do a good daily ration. The Commander-in-Chief has not hitherto prevented parcels of luxuries in the way of food stuffs being sent to them.

S.s. "KING ALEXANDER" (CREW).

Sir J. BUTCHER: 51.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that a British merchant ship, s.s. "King Alexander," recently arrived at Constantinople from the Piraeus flying the Red Ensign and entirely manned, with the exception of a British wireless operator, by Greeks, none of whom were either naturalised British subjects or held a British Board of Trade certificate; and that, in spite of protests from persons entitled to protest, this ship was allowed to clear on her outward voyage by orders from the Foreign Office; whether he will state who gave those orders and why; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter, seeing that the manning of this ship as above described and the order for its clearance were not in accordance with the law?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards parts two and three, the vessel was not detained, or prevented from sailing, by the British authorities at Constantinople, as there is no legal restriction, so far as I am aware, with regard to the officering and manning of British ships trading between Constantinople and other foreign ports.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Has my hon. Friend read the provisions of the Aliens Act as to the employment of British subjects; and, if so, why were they disregarded in this case?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: It is rather a Home Office than a Foreign Office matter, and I have also had the advantage of consultation with the Board of Trade.

Sir J. BUTCHER: Were orders from the Foreign Office sent to enable this ship to clear on her outward voyage?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I am sorry that the answer did not refer to that. Perhaps the hon. and learned Member will put down that question.

CHINA (CONSORTIUM).

Mr. STEWART: 52.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that, although no written communication has been received by His Majesty's Government from the Chinese Government since the formation of the new Consortium in October last, there have been many official conversations in Peking as well as a declaration by the Chinese Financial Minister to the American Minister and to the American Financial Representative; whether, under these circumstances, His Majesty's Government knows what is the point of view of China with regard to the Consortium; and whether, if it does, it will inform the House of its purport?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: I do not know precisely to what official conversations and declaration the hon. Member refers. I am aware that there was much opposition and criticism in China when the Consortium first came into being, but that was to be foreseen, and was no doubt largely due to misinformation and misapprehension. The only authoritative pronouncement as to the attitude of the Chinese Government towards this subject is to be found in a published letter of the Chinese Minister of Finance to the Consortium representatives last November to the effect that China heartily welcomed such evidence of goodwill provided her-national freedom remained unimpaired.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIA.

BRITISH SUBJECT (ALLEGED MURDER).

Mr. G. JONES: 54.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that John Greaves, a British subject, was taken as hostage by the Bolsheviks on the 9th May, 1920, at Bordiansk; that shortly afterwards he was removed to Alevandrovsk; and that it has been reported he was shot by the Bolsheviks on 25th November, 1920, at Clarkoff; and what steps he proposes to take in the matter?

Mr. HARMSWORTH: The information on which the hon. Member's question is founded has already been brought to the notice of the Foreign Office, but no confirmation has yet been received from any source. I need hardly say that inquiries were at once made of the Soviet Government, and that they will be renewed until a full report is forthcoming.

COMMERCIAL MISSION.

Sir J. D. REES: 58.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether any, and, if so, how many of the members of the British Trade Mission are officially qualified Russian interpreters?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: As my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade informed the hon. Member for Islington on the 9th June, the proposed members of the Commercial Mission to Russia all have a thorough knowledge of the Russian language, both written and spoken.

Sir J. D. REES: Does that mean that they are not officially qualified?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I think that they have the full qualification of men who have had a long experience in Russia and are fluent speakers and writers of the language.

Sir J. D. REES: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman realise that many men have spent long lives in Russia and have not learned a word of Russian?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Yes, but the difference is that these officers have spent many years in Russia and have become fluently acquainted with the language.

Sir J. D. REES: What is the use of the Russian interpreters who have been given
rewards by the Government and have never done a stitch of work in their lives?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I really cannot say whether the premises on which my hon. Friend bases his question or his conclusions are correct, but these officers have been specially selected for their knowledge of the Russian language and for their experience of Russian business.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

CONSULAR FEES.

Mr. KILEY: 56.
asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether he is aware that the French Consul in London does not impose any charge for certifying the documents of British traders; in view of this, is he prepared to give instructions that British Consuls in France should not make any charge on French traders desirous of exporting goods to British nationals; and whether he can see his way clear to address communications to all countries with whom we have commercial treaties or covenants expressing willingness to instruct British Consuls to refrain from making any charge if the respective Governments concerned will do likewise?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: By an exchange of Notes in 1899, this country and France agreed mutually to waive consular fees on certificates of origin, and this mutual arrangement is in force in both countries. At the present moment, I see little prospect of concluding similar arrangements with other foreign countries.

Mr. KILEY: Has the hon. Gentleman made any efforts to approach other countries? Considering that Great Britain exports the greatest quantity of goods, would it not be a great advantage to traders if this arrangement could be extended?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I am watching the matter. At present there is no advantage to be gained, but action will be taken as and when occasion presents itself.

Mr. KILEY: As the Overseas Trade Department has a very large staff, would it not be usefully employed in making these suggestions to foreign Powers?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I do not think that it would be usefully employed when there is not the least prospect that its suggestions would lead to a useful result.

Mr. KILEY: If foreign Powers refused, that would alter the case, but will the hon. Gentleman reconsider the matter as foreign Powers have not refused it?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: We have already considered this, and I do not think that at present we should be in a position to make any particular suggestion, but circumstances may arise in which such a proposition may be made with a useful result.

BRITISH CELLULOSE COMPANY.

Mr. BRIANT: 1.
asked the President of the Board of Trade who are the two directors of the British Cellulose Company appointed by the Government at a salary of £500 a year?

Mr. YOUNG: The two directors appointed by the Government are Brigadier-General Sir William Alexander, K.B.E., C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., and Sir Philip Henriques, K.B.E.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are these gentlemen drawing directors' fees, in view of the fact that the company's shares are down to bed-rock?

Mr. YOUNG: They are not drawing directors' fees. Each is drawing an official salary of £500 a year from the Government, and the directors' fees are put into the Exchequer.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Are we to understand the Government is paying a salary of £500 a year to each of these gentlemen?

Mr. KILEY: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether Sir William Alexander is the same gentleman who was head of the Contracts Department of the Ministry of Munitions, and placed orders for millions of pounds with this company; and was Sir Philip Henriques the head of the Finance Department who paid, or loaned, this firm some millions of pounds; if so, would it not have been advisable to have appointed directors free from any former connection with this concern?

HOME-GROWN SUGAR, LIMITED.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 2.
asked the President of the Board of Trade why the factory of Home-grown
Sugar, Limited, was mortgaged before being completed; why only 2,300 acres was placed under contract with the farmers instead of the full 6,000 originally intended; why only 200 acres of beet have been cultivated at the factory's own estate and many other offers from farmers refused; and whether, in view of the fact that the factory works only 50 days in the year, the company has ever considered a means for utilising the plant after the working season is over?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Sir A. Boscawen): I have been asked to reply. The factory was mortgaged owing to the very considerably increased cost of construction attributable to the rise in the cost of labour and materials. With regard to the second and third parts of the question, the company's experts considered it inadvisable, with new machinery and inexperienced labour, to accept more than 20,000 to 25,000 tons of raw material during the first year, and distribution of contracts to farmers was effected as fairly as possible having regard to the reduced supplies of raw materials required. With a full supply of beet the factory would not be continuously in operation for more than three months, but in addition time is required for preparations for handling the crop and overhauling the machinery afterwards. With regard to the remainder of the year, the directors are considering how they can best utilise the plant without impairing the efficiency of the factory for sugar production.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is it intended to continue this experiment in view of the poor results obtained?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Up to date there has been no result, because the experiment has not yet been started.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: If the factory was mortgaged before they even started operations, is not that a very poor look-out for the success of the business?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Not at all. As I have pointed out, the mortgage is due to the fact that the cost of construction is very much larger than was estimated.

Mr. KILEY: Is it the policy of the Government, whenever they invest State money in industrial concerns, to permit mortgages to be raised on the property?

WOOL SALES.

Major BARNES: 5.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if the principal buying at the wool auction sales held in London during the week commencing the 13th June, 1921, has been upon German account; and, if so, how this and other commodities bought at the present rate of exchange can be manufactured to compete with British goods?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I am informed that there were considerable operations on German account at the last series of wool sales. The question of competition of German manufactures, involving, as it does, considerations as to the source of the raw material, the relation of costs of raw materials to other manufacturing costs, fluctuations in exchange, and other factors, appears too complex to be discussed in answer to a question; but I think the hon. and gallant Member may safely assume that the Germans would not buy the wool unless they could sell the manufactured product at a profit.

DUMPING.

Major BARNES: 6.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will give particulars of any article which is being dumped into this country, giving a list of firms manufacturing such commodities, with the capital involved and profits they have made during their last financial year?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: It will be for the Committee to be set up under Clause 7 of the Safeguarding of Industries Bill to investigate any complaint as to dumping and to report whether it is taking place. The hon. and gallant Member cannot, therefore, expect me to prejudice any individual case.

Major MACKENZIE WOOD: Are we to understand from that that the Government have no evidence of dumping going on in this country?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: That was not what I said, and the hon. and gallant Member, who has taken a fairly active part in the Debates, well knows the Government's view on the subject.

Major M. WOOD: May we not know what the Government's view is in the matter, or are they preparing for something that does not exist?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: The hon. and gallant Member has had the Government's view on several previous occasions and he will have it again to-morrow.

Dr. MURRAY: Is it not a fact that the Government's view is that they have no facts on the subject?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: No.

OPTICAL GLASS.

Major BARNES: 7.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will state the amount of capital employed in this country in the manufacture of optical glass; the number of firms so engaged; the percentage of profit they have disbursed since the Armistice; and what subsidies, if any, they have received since August, 1914?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: There are now three companies who are manufacturers of optical glass. Precise figures as to the amount of capital invested in the industry are not available, as in two of the three cases the manufacture has been carried on as part only of the operations of the company concerned. It is estimated, however, that during the War the capital employed in the industry was rather more than £150,000. I understand that no profits have been made on the manufacture of optical glass since the Armistice, but, on the contrary, loss has been incurred. Financial assistance to the amount of approximately £78,000 has been given to the industry since August, 1914.

Lord ROBERT CECIL: Is that by the Government?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: Yes.

BRITISH DYES.

Mr. MYERS: 13.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in the establishment of British dyes, the goodwill of certain private businesses was purchased; and, if so, whether there was any provision in the conditions of sale to prevent the firm or firms concerned establishing a new business in competition with British dyes?

Sir P. LLOYD-GREAME: I am not clear if the inquiry of the hon. Member relates to British Dyes, Limited, which on its formation in 1915 acquired the undertaking of Read, Holliday, and Sons, Limited, or to the British Dyestuffs Corporation, which was formed to acquire
the control of British Dyes, Limited, and Levinstein, Limited. In the former case no such condition as is suggested by the hon. Member was imposed; in the latter case the nature of the amalgamation was such that the question would not arise.

AGRICULTURAL WORKERS (WAGES AND CONDITIONS).

Mr. A. HERBERT: 59.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has considered the desirability of encouraging Whitley Councils in the rural areas, for the purpose of arriving at settlements with regard to wages?

Mr. HURD: 60.
asked the Minister of Agriculture the result of friendly conferences between the unions representing the farmers and workers, respectively, to ensure a mutually satisfactory agreement on wages and working conditions on the land?

Captain TUDOR-REES: 63.
asked the Minister of Agriculture what provision he has made or proposes to make to deal with cases of hardship due to the intended repeal of Part I of the Agriculture Act, 1920; and whether he will state whether it is the intention of the Government to substitute any other organisation for the Agricultural Wages Board for the regulation of the wages of agricultural workers?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: With the leave of the House I will answer these questions together. The proposals of the Government in regard to the relations of agricultural employers and workmen will be embodied in the Bill which I propose to introduce to-day to repeal the Corn Production Acts, and I propose to make a full statement on the subject on the occasion of the Second Reading of the Bill, which will, I hope, take place next week. In the meantime, I may say that the matter was considered by the Council of the National Farmers' Union last week, when a resolution was passed recommending the setting up of voluntary joint committees of representatives of employers and workmen to deal with questions affecting wages in the agricultural industry.

Mr. HURD: Has this matter also been before the Agricultural Workers' Union?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I have been in communication with the responsible leaders of the Workers' Union.

Mr. G. EDWARDS: Why were the leaders of the Agricultural Labourers' Union not asked to a conference on the same day as that on which the right hon. Gentleman met the farmers?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: As a first step I thought it better to see the two sides separately. I earnestly hope that they will meet in joint conference before long.

JAM FRUITS (PRICE).

Earl WINTERTON: 64.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that a combine of 75 per cent. of the jam manufacturers have fixed a maximum purchase price of jam fruits which is lower than that at which they can be grown; and whether he will take steps to prevent a continuance of such a monopoly, which, if continued, threatens to wipe out the British soft-fruit-growing industry?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I have only just been supplied with the information upon which the statement of the Noble Earl is based. As he is aware, a deputation from the Federation of British Growers is meeting me to-day and I am considering what action it may be possible to take.

HERRING FISHERIES (GOVERNMENT GUARANTEE).

Mr. PERCY: 66.
asked the Minister of Agriculture what is the total amount of the stocks of salted herrings now owned by the Government; their cost and present estimated value; and what is the estimated profit or loss to date of the purchase and sale of herrings by or on behalf of the Government?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: I must refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the question addressed to me on the 15th instant by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Stafford.

Mr. PERCY: Do I understand that the Government has entirely ceased to buy herrings for the purpose of sale and that the markets are to resume their normal course?

Sir A. BOSCAWEN: Yes; there is no guarantee to purchase on behalf of the Government this year's catch. The question, I presumed, referred to last year's catch.

RICE (BURMA).

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 68.
asked the Secretary of State for India whether he can make any statement as to the rice ring in Burma and the method His Majesty's Government proposes in order to break the ring?

Mr. PARKER (Lord of the Treasury, for Mr. Montagu): My right hon. Friend has seen statements which have appeared in the Press as to the existence of a rice ring in Burma, but has no reason to believe that the attempt alleged to have been made to corner rice supplies has been successful. The Government of India are watching the situation closely, and are taking action to deal with it. My right hon. Friend is in telegraphic communication with them on the subject. It is a matter for them, and not for His Majesty's Government.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: When shall we have any information as to this from the India Office?

Mr. PARKER: I cannot give the hon. Member the information but I will ask the Secretary of State about it.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: May I ask the Leader of the House whether the Secretary of State for India attends on any particular day of the week?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Gentleman knows the day on which Indian questions have precedence.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: As under the new management questions are now generally concluded every day of the week, may we expect that Ministers will revert to the ancient practice of attending to answer their own questions?

Mr. SPEAKER: It is the duty of Ministers to be present, unless they have overriding engagements.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: May I point out that I put this question to the Secretary of State for India on Thursday, but he could not come, and wrote to me to say so. I put it down again for to-day at his own request, and he is not here.

Mr. SPEAKER: I assume, of course, that he has been prevented from attending.

SCOTTISH UNIVERSITIES.

Sir R. THOMAS: 69.
asked the Secretary for Scotland what is the amount contributed from local sources in Scotland to the income of each of the Scottish universities, and whether such amount is derived from local rates, and, if so, what is the rate, or from some other and what form of revenue; and whether any university in Scotland receives any rebate from the local rates as occupier of the university?

Mr. MORISON: I would refer the hon. Member to the Returns from universities and university colleges in receipt of Treasury grant, 1919–20 (Cmd. 1263), which give the information he desires.

GROCERY AND PROVISION TRADE BOARD.

Mr. G. W. H. JONES: 74.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he proposes to sanction the rates of pay fixed by the Grocery and Provision Trade Board; and, if so, can he say when he anticipates giving such sanction?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Sir Montague Barlow): My right hon. Friend had hoped to give a decision last week. It will certainly be given in a day or two.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

POSTAGE RATE (PRINTED MATTER).

Mr. BOTTOMLEY: 77.
asked the Postmaster-General whether, according to the Post Office regulations, applications for employment may be sent at the reduced printed matter rate, but that in the Postal Guide it is stated that the written matter thereon may not exceed five words; and whether, since such a limitation is impracticable in the case of an application for employment, he will take steps to alter it?

Mr. PEASE: The hon. Member is under a misapprehension. Commercial and business papers, which for this purpose include applications for employment,
may be sent at the printed paper rate if they consist of a printed form designed for the purpose. Any blanks on the form may be filled up in writing, and five words of a conventional character may be written in addition.

TELEPHONE DIRECTORY.

Colonel Sir A. HOLBROOK: 78.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the condition imposed on telephone subscribers who advertise in the Post Office official telephone directory, whereby they are deprived of any legal remedy against the advertisement contractor or the Postmaster-General when their telephone number is incorrectly inserted in the directory; and whether he will issue instructions that in cases where it can be proved that the advertisement contractor is responsible for the error, the charge should be remitted for the useless notification made in the directory?

Mr. YOUNG: It is a condition of all orders for advertisements in the Post Office official telephone directories that neither the Postmaster-General nor the advertisement contractor can recognise any claim for compensation if an advertisement be cancelled, omitted, or inserted incorrectly, either as to its wording, space and position in the directory, or otherwise. Where it can be proved, however, that the advertisement contractor is responsible for an error which cannot be remedied by giving special instructions to the telephone operators, and which renders useless the notification made in the directory, the charge for the advertisement will be remitted on application.

CABLEGRAMS (INDIA AND FAR EAST).

Lieut.-Colonel HURST: 79.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the excessive delay in the transmission of cablegrams between Manchester and India and the Far East; whether he is aware that the only means of telegraphing within reasonable time is by paying treble rates for urgent telegrams, while ordinary cables often take a week to arrive from India; what are the reasons for this delay; and whether he will take action in order to remove the consequent handicap to business?

Mr. PEASE: The serious delays that have recently occurred on the Eastern
Telegraph Company's cables to India and the Far East have been due to cable interruptions, some of which have been caused by the necessity of renewing certain sections of their cables in the Red Sea, which were in bad condition. Moreover, the cable between the United States and the Far East was interrupted for several weeks, thus throwing the whole of the American traffic with the Far East on to the Eastern Company's lines. I am assured by the company that every effort is being made to reduce the delays. An improvement has been effected during the last few days; and as soon as the work in the Red Sea is completed—probably within the next fortnight—it is hoped that the present exceptional delays will cease.

MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS (INQUIRY).

Sir J. D. REES: 92.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the cost to the State of the Ministry of Munitions inquiry into the charges made by the hon. Member for East Bradford?

Mr. YOUNG: The direct cost to the State as far as it can be ascertained at present is in the neighbourhood of £1,500. No reliable estimate can be made of the indirect cost, although this must have been considerable.

Sir J. D. REES: Why is sanction given to these inquiries, which invariably result in the expenditure of money, without any profit to anybody concerned?

Mr. SPEAKER: The inquiry was authorised by the House.

INCOME TAX.

Major STEEL: 95.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether an Income Tax payer who has lodged a claim for repayment of tax is granted interest if claimed on the amount of the claim, if it is allowed, from the date of claim till the date of repayment?

Mr. YOUNG: There is no provision in the law for the payment of interest in respect of moneys owing to or by the Exchequer on account of Income Tax.

SOLDIER'S ARREST, ALDERSHOT.

Mr. HIGHAM: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Private Jarratt, of the Duke of Wellington's (West Riding) Regiment, stationed at Ramillies Barracks, was awakened by the scream of a woman outside the barracks, and, on going out, saw a woman in great pain at the end of the building, that he took her into the barracks, placed her on his bed, and fetched a policeman and a doctor, that in consequence of his humane action the woman's life was saved, but he was found to have broken the regulations forbidding a woman in the barracks, and was punished by being placed in detention; can he state whether the soldier's action in this matter will be placed to his credit on his Army record and not to his detriment, that his commanding officer will be instructed to commend this man's action, and, further, what recompense does he propose to make to the man in the circumstances?

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Sir Laming Worthington-Evans): The facts stated in the first part of the question are substantially correct. The soldier was placed in arrest and detained until a post-mortem examination of the child was completed; he was then released. A military inquiry is being held, and I will inform my hon. Friend of the result.

Mr. HIGHAM: Will the right hon. Gentleman say why an inquiry is being held into an action of this kind, which is obvious?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: A military inquiry is being held in order to ascertain all the facts.

Mr. J. JONES: Similar to what is going on in Ireland.

Mr. HIGHAM: Is this man still under detention?

Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANS: No, I think not. I said he was released as soon as the result of the post-mortem examination was known.

Mr. J. JONES: This will all be in "John Bull" next week.

NEW MEMBER SWORN.

THOMAS WATTERS BROWN, esquire, for the County of Down (North Down Division)—[on appointment as Solicitor-General for Ireland].

CORN PRODUCTION ACTS (REPEAL) BILL,

"to repeal the Corn Production Acts, 1917 to 1920, to make provision as to payments under those Acts in respect of the crops of the current year; to provide funds for agricultural development; to promote the formation of joint conciliation councils and committees for the industry of agriculture; and to make certain consequential amendments in Section twelve of the Agriculture Act, 1920," presented by Sir ARTHUR BOSCAWEN; supported by Mr. Munro and Sir Ernest Pollock; to be read a Second time upon Thursday, and to be printed. [Bill 153.]

Orders of the Day — UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE BILL.

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Amendment of First Schedule of Principal Act.)

(1) Part II of the First Schedule to the principal Act (which relates to excepted employments) shall he amended,

(i) by the addition thereto of the following new paragraph:

(cc) Employment in a police force;

and

(ii) by the deletion from paragraph (d) thereof of the following words: "in a police force";

and the said part of the said Schedule shall be read and construed accordingly.

(2) These Amendments shall be deemed to have had effect as from the commencement of the principal Act.—[Sir Ashton Lister.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Sir ASHTON LISTER: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The object of the Amendment is to exempt the police from the payment of unemployment levy. These men are not likely to be unemployed except for disobedience or neglect of duty.

Mr. HURD: I beg to second the Motion.

The MINISTER of LABOUR (Dr. Macnamara): Part II of the First Schedule of the Act of 1920 sets out the employments which are or may be excepted from unemployment insurance. Various forms of employment are excepted by Schedule, and this, which the Amendment covers, may be excepted within the discretion of the Minister. The police are in the latter category, and my hon. Friend wants to put them into the former—that they should be excepted by Schedule. Let me explain. Shortly after the Act of 1920 was passed, the Home Office wrote to my Department and asked, in view of the fact that members of the force are safeguarded against dismissal except for offences against discipline or for unfitness to perform their duties, that I should issue a
certificate excepting them from the Unemployment Insurance Act. I did so. So far as the Amendment of my hon. Friend has substance, it has been covered. Those concerned are not excepted by Schedule, but by act of discretion. My hon. Friend may say, "Why not, therefore, remove them by Statute from the second category into the former?" The answer is that, if the proposed new Clause were adopted, then the temporary police, for whom, obviously, I must make some provision by way of unemployment insurance, would be excepted by the Act. That I cannot do. I do not think it would be right. The same consideration would apply to women police. I do not know, and I can scarcely say, that their position to-day is fully established and stabilised, and for me to absolve myself from any necessity for making provision for them should they be unemployed would be wrong. Therefore I cannot accept this proposed new Clause. My certificate has already done, I can assure my hon. Friend, what is required.

Sir R. ADKINS: I am quite sure there is not a large amount of difference between my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment and the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Labour. The right hon. Gentleman is, however, carrying the thing too far when he says that the object is achieved by the issuing of a certificate at his discretion, and at the request of the Home Secretary. I have not the least doubt that while these two right hon. Gentlemen occupy, with universal approval, their present posts, the exchange of these certificates will be automatic. It is, however, very desirable that where, in fact, an important class of employé is excepted from a Bill of this kind, that it should, if possible, be done by Statute and not by Departmental action. I agree that there arises a perfectly valid point when you are dealing with temporary police. We should all expect from the right hon. Gentleman that he would be extremely careful to see that persons giving valuable help, though in temporary employment, are not put at any disadvantage in connection with unemployment benefit. I suggest—and surely he will agree—that it is very much better to have this in the Schedule. If there are any particular difficulties in accepting the form of words of my hon. Friend, then, perhaps, my right hon. Friend the Minister will see if in another
place a form of words can be arrived at which will allow for the particular exceptions and will, at least, bring the police into the same position as other persons. Unless my right hon. Friend can try to follow the suggestion made, I can assure him that here and in another place a great deal would be said and done on this matter, to which some attach great importance, in order to get it put right.

Mr. HURD: May I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that this is a matter upon which a very fine body of men feel very strongly? I do hope he will see his way to consider the suggestion just made. It will be quite possible to alter the words if the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend get together, and I trust the matter will not be left in its present unsatisfactory state.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I fully appreciate the point made by my hon. Friends. I will see whether the exception can be provided for in another place by Statute rather than by discretion, although the certificate has already been given in proper circumstances.

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Amendment of 10 and 11 Geo. V, c. 30, s. 7.)

Section seven of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920 (which prescribes statutory conditions for receipt of unemployment benefit), shall have effect as if to Sub-section (1) there were added the following:

Provided that where it is held that an insured contributor has not fulfilled the statutory condition that he is capable of and available for work, but unable to obtain suitable employment, the application of such insured contributor for unemployment benefit shall, if he so requests, be reviewed from time to time at the expiration of periods of not less than six weeks.—[Mr. Mills.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. MILLS: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
4.0 P.M.
On Thursday of last week a portion of this Amendment was moved by one of, the occupants of these benches. It was opposed by the Minister on the ground that it would place on his Department the responsibility of determining a position which might never arise, and, in view of that attitude, the Committee negatived the Clause. The party for which
I speak have made inquiries, and they can find nothing in the Act justifying the Minister's statement. I have before me the recent decision of the Court of Referees, No. 975, which deals with the case of a man living in Bristol. He was offered a job as a skilled man, a pipe fitter, on Salisbury Plain, at the magnificent remuneration of 9½d. per hour. It was understood that the job would last several weeks and that the fare would be paid one way. Owing to the very bad reports which he had heard about the job and the conditions existing between the time that they were asked to work one day and were asked to work another day, he refused to leave Bristol and go to Salisbury Plain. Unemployment benefit was disallowed, and the case went to the Court of Referees. I have their report here. It states that they were of opinion that the work offered was suitable, and they accordingly recommended that the claim for benefit should be disallowed. They did not, however, agree with the insurance officer's decision to impose disqualification for six weeks, or until the workman had made another claim after employment. They then go on to give reasons in support of this, decision, and finally they say:
We agree with the Chairman of the-Court of Referees that a specific period of disqualification for refusal of suitable employment is not imposed by the Act. Each case must depend upon its own particular facts and circumstances. At the same time, a workman who has refused suitable employment must, in our judgment, be regarded as not fulfilling the conditions laid down in Section 86.
The Report goes on to give more reasons, and then, in another paragraph, it, states:
It may be desirable in the interests of workmen that some time should be stated; by the insurance officer, at the end of which, and in the absence of special circumstances, the workman's evidence as to his, inability to obtain suitable employment would be accepted without proof beyond the fact that employment had not been obtained; otherwise, it would probably be thought that the period continued indefinitely. With regard to the further point embodied in the insurance officer's decision—until he has made a fresh claim—normally, a fresh claim after bonâ fide employment should be considered without reference to an earlier refusal of employment, but there might be cases in which the rule should not apply.
Therefore, to make it more acceptable to the Minister words have been inserted to make it read, "if he so requests."
That places the burden on the applicant and disposes of the objection of the Minister.

Mr. HAYDAY: I beg to second the Motion.
This is one of those cases where the right hon. Gentleman can meet our desires. Originally I thought that cases similar to this, cases of misconduct, and various other cases to which the disqualifying Sections apply were all covered under the one general head; but, to my surprise, I find on inquiry at our district office that it is not so, and that a man who refuses some offer of employment which is looked upon as suitable is to all intents and purposes disqualified during the whole of that period of unemployment.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Six weeks.

Mr. HAYDAY: If the right hon. Gentleman will accept this new Clause, that will be quite clearly stated, but now it is not. I have some samples of recent disqualifications in my pocket, and I can only conclude that, owing to the amount of work that has fallen upon the Employment Exchanges, they have not been able to give exactly the clear terms of disqualification. In the main, they are given in general terms, and the unemployed person usually looks upon ft as covering the whole period of his unemployment and thinks that he cannot reclaim until he has obtained employment and fallen out of work again. If that be so, it is really a cruel form of punishment, because those who decide whether the employment is suitable or not always leave the position open to doubt. A man may be offered employment at the rate for the district, but, owing to the fact that he has to travel some distance from his place of residence and to other circumstances, it may be that he should not be disqualified for refusing suitable employment. The employment itself may be all right, but the circumstances under which that employment is expected to be fulfilled may not be all right. These matters are always open to doubt, and all that we are asking is that at the end of six weeks the man shall have the right of having his case reopened before the Court of Referees if he so desires. Surely, that is not asking too much. If the Minister is going to refuse quite a negligible case of this description, then we can hardly
hold out any hope of arriving at a pacific understanding with regard to any Unemployment Insurance Act. The kindliest view is not always taken on this question of disqualification, especially when you remember that it applies to people who have suddenly had an Act thrust upon them, have had little opportunity of reading the explanatory leaflets, and many of whom err quite ignorantly. A man with a family may find that in the opinion of the Exchange, or the insurance officer, or the Court of Referees he has committed some slight error in refusing what they consider to be suitable employment, and that he and his family are to be penalised throughout a long period of unemployment. Unless it be made known that there is some opportunity to reopen the case at the end of six weeks, a man who lost his employment in March and who has had no opportunity of getting employment, may still believe that the embargo remains upon him and that his punishment must continue for the rest of the period that he happens to be unemployed. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if he cannot in cases like these give an opportunity for review at the request of the disqualified person.

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Might I be allowed to say a very few words upon this proposed new Clause from the point of view of one who has often sat as assessor in these cases. The suggestion underlying the Clause is that there shall be regularity of appeal, and that it shall be made known to all, assessor, officers, Employment Exchanges, and applicants that there is this right of appeal. I desire in the heartiest manner to support the suggestion contained in the Clause. I believe that many assessors themselves are not fully advised of the provisions of the principal Act in this matter, because, after all, one cannot read the whole of the circulars that come out with all the attention that they ought to have, and, as for the extra labour referred to by the, previous speakers, I can assure my right hon. Friend that an average of about ten minutes is all that is necessary as a rule fairly to sift the applications and to deal with them justly. Some, of course, take longer, but some take less. That being so, the labour entailed upon the Court of Assessors will not be increased to an overwhelming degree, and the whole policy of legislation in the last three years has been to establish oppor-
tunities for appeal so that anyone who feels himself aggrieved will have an opportunity given him by a re-hearing. Therefore, I believe that it would be in the interests of justice and fair play and not unduly burdensome upon the organisation if my right hon. Friend could see his way to accept this Clause either in the form in which it has been moved or with some reasonable modifications such as his advisers and himself may think fit.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I am not sure whether the last two speakers have not read more into the Clause than there is. It has nothing to do with the case of the man who is disqualified by misconduct. We are merely dealing with the case of the man who is disqualified because he has refused to take up what someone else thinks is suitable employment. As a rule, if that be established, he is disqualified for six weeks. Upstairs in Committee my hon. Friends asked that at the end of the six weeks the Ministry should take up the case and see whether the penalty, having been fully carried out, the man ought not to enter into benefit. I then said that that would be an impracticable task. We should have to watch every day, because somebody or other would be coming to the conclusion of their six weeks, and it was right for the man at the end of the six weeks to make his own arrangements. I observe that, as the result of my kindly counsel upstairs, if I may say so, the Clause has assumed a different form and that my hon. Friends have tried to meet me by putting in the words, "if he so requests." If the hon. Member will use the words, "if he renews his application," that is the formal way to proceed. The man might say, "I called at the Labour Exchange, and that is my request," but where is the man's form? I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should alter the words as I have indicated, and then I shall have great pleasure in accepting them.

Question put, and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time.

Mr. HAYDAY: I beg to move to leave out the words "so requests," and to insert instead thereof the words "renews his application."

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, added to the Bill.

NEW CLAUSE.— [Amendment of 10 and 11 George V, c. 30, s. 8.]

Section eight of the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1920 (which sets forth disquali-
fications for unemployment benefit), shall have effect as if for the words "reason of a stoppage of work which is due to" there were substituted the words "the withdrawal of his labour in order to participate in.— [Mr. Clynes.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. CLYNES: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time.
I should be happier if there happened to be in the House a larger number of hon. Members on the Benches opposite than I see before me, as I am confident that if hon. Members, before being called upon to give a vote on this Clause, could only hear the case which can be stated for it, we should probably find it would be added to the Bill. The events of our industrial troubles, and the general facts and circumstances relating to them since last we had to consider this question, have strengthened the case which on several occasions we represented to the House and the Committee. During the present year considerable numbers of men have been prevented from proceeding with their work because of trade disputes, and they have received the benefit, but in the case of lesser numbers of them the benefits have been stopped for exactly the same cause, and they have not been able because of the terms of the Act as it now is to receive any benefits at all. Our plea is for equality of treatment as between men who have to pay exactly the same contributions under exactly the same conditions in their particular employment. May I point out that this is not a voluntary contribution, and the men who pay are compelled to pay. It is therefore logical and reasonable to say that where you have conditions of compulsion in exacting a contribution you should have conditions of equity in regard to the general payment of the benefit derivable under the Act.
Our proposal really is to avoid existing injustices applying to individual workmen forced to be out of work through no fault of their own. The principle of the law of injustice in providing anything for conditions of unemployment is that when men are out of work through no fault of their own they should have some assistance through the means of insurance to enable them to face their difficulties until work is resumed again. On the strength of that principle, we say that when a workman is prevented from going on with his work because some fellow workman—it
may be in the same establishment or the same department—is in a strike or lockout, that in itself should not disqualify the innocent workman from receiving the general benefits provided for under this Act. Where the workman is not responsible for the discontinuance of work, and where he is in no way a party to the dispute, where in short he is nothing but a victim of circumstances which he cannot control or terminate, surely the House will agree that provision ought to be made for that man to receive benefit, and he should not be disqualified merely because of the accident that he works in a department where there has been a dispute.
The right hon. Gentleman on more than one occasion has dealt with this claim. I think he cannot argue to-day that if he met this claim the whole financial foundation of the Bill itself would be destroyed or seriously impaired, because nothing of the kind would take place. So far as I can see the right hon. Gentleman has had to fall back upon one argument and that is that the parties to a dispute, that is labour on the one hand and capital on the other, through their respective representatives, have not been able to agree amongst themselves upon a form or set of words that would cover the principle upon which it appears everyone is agreed. That seems the only argument of any substance which the right hon. Gentleman has so far adduced. Let me try to deal with that argument. The right hon. Gentleman has used during the Report stage of the Act which we have to consider elsewhere, that is the Act of 1920 in this relation, the following words:
If I could have submitted to me a proposal which is acceptable to the two main parties, the employers, on the one hand, and the employés, on the other, if I could have placed before me an agreed proposition acceptable to both parties, and it is workable, I shall not put any undue obstacle in the way.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Hear, hear!

Mr. CLYNES: From the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman has submitted that point of view, he believes it to be a fair position to take up. Let me make some attempt, however feeble it may be, to show the right hon. Gentleman that that is a most unreasonable and unfair position to continue to maintain in view of what has happened. When the
statement was first made, and these conditions first formulated by the right hon. Gentleman, no sustained attempt had been made by the parties to reach an agreed settlement, but attempts have been made since, and the result, I think, justifies us in asking the right hon. Gentleman no longer to stand by this condition, for in doing so he puts one of the three parties in the position, if it likes, of being, able to laugh at the other two parties.

Dr. MACNAMARA: No!

Mr. CLYNES: Let me show the right hon. Gentleman that that is so. The Minister of Labour represents the Government. He admits the reasonableness and the justice of the principle which we are asking him to embody in the Act. He admits also that an injustice is being done to the individual workman, who is aggrieved, because he cannot get the benefits for which he pays after he is thrown out of work. He admits all this, and he says to the employers and employed, "You come together and agree, and arrive at an agreement, and I will embody the principle in the Act, and find language to cover the case." Whereupon the two parties come together. We have been together on more than one occasion, and the result of our conferences has been not a difference upon words or upon a formula, not a breaking away because we have not been able to agree on language, but we have broken away and discontinued our endeavours because the employers' representatives have refused to admit the principle, and they will not under any circumstances agree to any language or words which would provide for the case which the right hon. Gentleman himself admits is a just and reasonable proposition. Therefore I repeat that the right hon. Gentleman's refusal to find language to cover this claim is in substance enabling one of the three parties concerned to completely frustrate the wishes of the Government itself in regard to this grievance.
Personally, I have met and discussed the matter with the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir Allan Smith), who in this House can speak with very great authority for that particular industry which has been most concerned in relation to this subject. The great engineering trades at this moment are very much involved in wage questions, and they are continuing their conferences, and ballots
are being arranged and the usual procedure is being followed. We have met my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, and, indeed, I have put pointedly to him in this House the question of whether he was prepared on behalf of the employers to agree to the principle in order that we could find language to cover this case, but he has remained silent. I regret that he is not present, and that when challenged in this House to debate the matter and state his view, he has declined to say a word. I repeat that outside this House we have failed to get the employers' side to agree to the principle of the demand which we are now pressing. My argument now is that I must throw the whole responsibility upon my right hon. Friend and say that, in face of the failure of the two sides to agree, and in face of that failure being due to a refusal of the employers to accept a principle which my right hon. Friend has himself accepted, it becomes his obligation as the responsible Minister to proceed and find language which would meet this case.
I do not think that the absence of any agreement, or the refusal of the assistance of the representatives of the employers to come to terms any longer justifies the Government in allowing this question to remain in abeyance. It may be 12 months before we can again return to this subject, and meanwhile a large number of workmen who will have to pay will be prevented from receiving benefits to which morally they are entitled, because the right hon. Gentleman fails in his duty and throws the responsibility on two other parties, who clearly cannot agree at all. On behalf of my hon. Friends who sit on these Benches I can say that if the representatives of the employers will agree to the principle we would be disposed almost to leave to them the providing of the language. It is not a difference on mere words; it is a difference on the principle between the two parties, and in face of that difference now being so fully revealed, there can be no excuse or justification of any kind for declining to meet us in the case we are now pressing.
The right hon. Gentleman has given as a minor argument some instances of difficulties that will arise in ascertaining properly who would be the particular persons entitled to claim in the event of the present Act being altered. I agree that there may be administrative diffi-
culties in regard to identification, but they exist in relation to any man who makes a claim in respect of his benefits. You must identify the man and be able to certify from revealed facts that he is entitled to the benefit before he can get it. But we have at this moment knowledge of cases in which men have to wait many weeks and even a couple of months for their benefit until it has been completely established that they are entitled to it. Therefore we submit that administrative difficulties, or any question of not being able at once to certify that a man is entitled to the benefit, ought not to stand in the way of including this just claim in the amending Bill which we are considering. Again I would say that we on this side of the House would be disposed to leave entirely to my right hon. Friend the finding of language to embody in this Bill a provision which would meet such practical or administrative difficulties as there may be, or we might even willingly leave it to the employers in particular instances to supply such facts from their knowledge, and to say whether or not a man is engaged directly in a strike. There could be in fact no better or fairer judge of such a case than the employer himself, and if he would say that a group of men were on strike and therefore not entitled to benefit, while another group of men were locked out, I see no difficulty whatever in treating the workers accordingly. We are not asking for unemployment pay for men engaged in a strike.

Dr. MACNAMARA: But you want to include all the men who are locked out.

Mr. CLYNES: The case I am trying to, put is that we are not asking for unemployment benefits under this Act for all men who are engaged in a strike, but we say that in the case of other groups of men in the same department, or in other establishment, who may be indirectly stopped through the strike of combatant persons, those persons not being parties to the dispute should have the unemployment benefit. If my right hon. Friend reverses the position and asks whether we are asking for unemployment benefit under this Act for men locked out by an employer, because of wage or other industrial quarrels, we say No. We are not asking for benefit either for men on strike in connection with the dispute or for men locked out by reason of the dis-
pute, we are merely putting forward a plea for men neither locked out nor on strike, and who are not parties to the dispute. We are putting forward a claim only for the men who fall between the two, between the employers and the employed, men who are innocent sufferers by some dispute which happens to occur in the place where they are working for the time being. I hope my right hon. Friend will see there is reason in the case I am putting forward.
We ought no longer to allow the unbending attitude of the employers' representatives in their refusal on any terms to arrange language that shall meet the case to prevent the alteration of the law for which we are now pressing. This is an amending Bill. It is a Bill which in our judgment will make the law of insurance benefit very much worse than it now is, for the reason that it reduces the benefit and inflicts injustice as we believe. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill therefore ought to be willing to take every opportunity of amending the Bill in other respects, and even of wiping out blemishes in the general law when it can be done without any serious impairment of the financial provisions of the Bill itself. It has been said by those who have addressed themselves to this question in connection with other disputes that to provide pay from funds under the Act in these cases might promote strikes or tend to lengthen their duration. I have endeavoured to meet that view by appeals to experience, and on the strength of that experience I can say that the money factor very seldom, if ever, determines either the beginning or the duration of any dispute. Let me take the present position in the coal trade to reinforce what I have said. It is known that the miners in many districts had no funds to begin with. In other cases they had very small funds which were soon exhausted. They are not now considering the terms of settlement or discussing conditions under which work may be resumed merely because their funds are exhausted, because, as a matter of fact, their funds were exhausted in the first week or two of the dispute. Frequently strikes have taken place in the case of workers who had to fight bitterly and for long without any reserves whatever. To start with, they had no funds in their organisation, and
notwithstanding that, the men came out for a long time, thus proving that the money factor is not a decisive consideration in regard either to the starting of a dispute or when it should be terminated.
I think employers should draw from their own experience and see that no contributions from the funds of the Act would in any way affect any question on negotiations regarding matters in dispute. Even if it were possible that in some odd cases the payment of such a benefit might have something to do with the prolongation of the dispute or even with the starting of it, that, in my judgment, would not be a sufficient reason for withholding the benefit from individual workmen who justly claim that they have a right to it. I put it to the House that when men are compelled to pay their contributions under the Act there ought not to be any authority whatever under any part of this Act enabling those who have control over these funds to withhold the benefits from men who clearly are not responsible for their own unemployment, and who if they had their way would be continuing their work in the ordinary manner. I can only put this, further, to the right hon. Gentleman. Inasmuch as we shall not be able to return to this subject probably for a very long time, he ought not in face of the proved unwillingness of the employers' representatives to carry out his wish that they should try to come to some arrangement in regard to the language to be adopted; there is no ground whatever for throwing the responsibility upon two parties one of whom will not consent to any change, and the time has arrived when it becomes not merely his duty but when it becomes the right of the workmen to impose upon him that duty, he having now the power to make the alteration in order that all men shall be placed equally before the law, just as the law places them on an equality in respect of the payment of contributions.

Dr. MACNAMARA: My right hon. Friend has raised a very old question, and one which he will admit to be of very great difficulty. The form of the Clause which he has put to us is precisely the form which was moved as an Amendment to the Bill of last year and again which was discussed in Committee upstairs only last Thursday. On the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1911 there were long discussions on this point as to the position of men who are direct parties to a
dispute and those who collaterally are thrown out of employment as a result of the dispute. It is now suggested that every man not directly responsible for the dispute should be entitled to unemployment benefit. The Act of 1911, as a result of considerable discussion, laid down that
Where separate branches of work which are commonly carried on as separate businesses in separate premises are in any case carried on in separate departments on the same premises, each of those departments shall for the purposes of this provision be deemed to be a separate factory or workshop or separate premises, as the case may be.
That is how the position was defined in 1911, and there it has stood ever since. It has been agreed by common consent that in connection with certain disputes men thrown out of work are not therefore entitled to the benefit. Take the case of bricklayers. They may be at work on a job in which boilermakers are concerned, and if the boilermakers have a trade dispute the bricklayers' work is for the time being suspended.

Mr. J. JONES: No!

Dr. MACNAMARA: I am trying to put the case of a bricklayer who finds himself unemployed by reason of a dispute in which he is not directly concerned, and who does not get the benefit. The difficulty is to find a line of equity which shall not create greater evils than those it is sought to remove, and up till the present that line has not been found. Let me take the terms of this Amendment, and the position which would be brought about if it were embodied in the Act. Here is a dispute in connection with a particular craft arising out of some disagreement between the union on the one hand and the employers on the other. There is a strike, and there are members of that craft who are not members of the union. I assume that, being members of the craft, and not being so far detached as the labourer, they would lose benefit; and they would come at once and say, "We did not withdraw our labour; why cannot we have benefit"? My right hon. Friend, if he will think for a moment, will see the difficult position in which these words—

Mr. W. THORNE: That would not apply, because his wages are affected in the same way as those of the men coming out on strike or locked out.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I do not think my hon. Friend has followed me. Here is a dispute between a union and an employer in the case of a particular craft—I am not raising the question of the labourer at all. It may be either a strike or a lock-out. Work stops; unemployment starts; wages stop; and, according to these words, the men would get no unemployment benefit. But there, right in the middle of it all, is a member of this craft who is not a member of the union. He says that he has not withdrawn his labour, and he would come to me; and these words would place me and those who have to administer the Act in a position of very real difficulty. I rather gather that my right hon. Friend suggests that in the case of a lock-out the craftsmen should not get benefit. But, in the case of a lock-out, does my right hon. Friend suppose that each of these men would not come and say, "I did not withdraw my labour; I am locked out." My right hon. Friend would not give that man benefit. He has told us so. But I can assure him that, if these words were used, the man would come and ask for it, and some of my hon. Friends behind him think that he ought to ask for it. If that is going to be the dilemna in the case of my hon. Friends opposite, what is going to be my position when I have to adjudicate upon and determine the matter? These words seem to seek to amend something else entirely, namely, the case of the labourer and of the man who is consequentially out of a job because the craftsmen have gone on strike or have been locked out. With great respect, they do not approach that in what I may hope may be the easiest way. I have always said, let the representatives of Labour and the representatives of the employers agree upon a form of words, and I will place no obstacle in the way if they are at all practicable. In connection with the 1920 Bill, I said that I would do my best to get the words introduced in another place, and I make the same offer now. My right hon. Friend says that, since two of the parties cannot agree, therefore I, the third party, must settle it, but he knows that that is much more difficult.

Mr. THORNE: That is what you are there for.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I congratulate my hon. Friend upon the fact that he has not got the job, because it is not so easy
as he thinks. I say that these words unnecessarily create within a craft the difficulty which I have tried to describe, and do not direct themselves to the case of men who are consequentially thrown out. I admit that that is a hardship, and if my Friends opposite will show me a form of words which will take the line of equity without creating greater evils than those which it is sought to remove, I will give it every possible consideration. These present words are words which could not possibly be accepted.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: I think the right hon. Gentleman is sheltering himself behind the question of an agreed-upon form of words which he wishes us to place before him in an Amendment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) has told him very plainly that the employers will not agree. It is not merely that they will not agree upon a form of words; they will not agree upon the principle. Now the Minister of Labour suggests that we should go back to the employers and get them to agree upon a form of words and upon a principle as to which they disagree with us. Really I think the Minister is quibbling with the whole question. This question involves a very large number of people who, as he knows, are suffering hardship. I take it that the House agreed, in the case of the previous Bill, as the Minister himself has quoted, that in order to meet the difficulties which might arise in complex industries, where several trades are engaged in the production of a certain commodity, a certain form of words should be put into the Bill. That form of words says that, where businesses, which have been carried on as separate businesses outside the trade in question, are in that trade carried on as part of the trade, and where disputes take place in one of those departments and unemployment results in the others, the same conditions as regards unemployment benefit, will prevail as though those men had been employed in separate premises outside and far away from that particular workshop. Is it beyond the wit of the Ministry of Labour to draft a form of words that will meet this difficulty? Is it the form of words that is the difficulty? If the right hon. Gentleman and his Department, or his predecessor, could draft a form of words to get over the difficulty I have mentioned, which is a
much more complicated difficulty than the one with which he is now asked to deal, surely it is not beyond the wit of his Department to devise words which will take the place of our words and will cover the point put forward by my right hon. Friend the Member for Platting. The Minister takes credit for being responsible for the framing of those words—

Dr. MACNAMARA: No, it was before my time.

Mr. MACLEAN: The right hon. Gentleman claims that they settled some of the controversies that existed up to that point. Let me disabuse him of that idea. They have not met the point. The right hon. Gentleman knows that I placed numbers of cases before his Department—

Dr. MACNAMARA: I said that the result of the discussions in 1911 was to produce those words, and I said that that is where the matter has rested ever since. I was merely making a historical statement; I did not say it had settled the matter.

Mr. MACLEAN: Those words were framed with the object of meeting the difficulties which had given rise to so much controversy, and it was in the mind of those who put forward the statement quoted by the Minister that it had met the difficulty. It does not meet the difficulty. In the shipyards, during the joiners' dispute, we have had the joiners out on strike, and we have had boiler-makers, platers, shipwrights—men who were not engaged in handling a single piece of wood in the shipbuilding yards—dismissed; and we have had this curious anomaly, that in some unemployment exchanges these men have been refused unemployment benefit because of the joiners' dispute, while in other exchanges, only a mile or two away, men belonging even to the same boilermarkers' squad have been paid their benefit, although they were dismissed at the same time and under practically the same conditions. When, in the case of those to whom no benefit has been paid, there has been an appeal to the Referees and the case has gone to the Umpire, the contention of the Department that they are not entitled to benefit, because they have been dismissed owing to a dispute, has been upheld, and the right hon. Gentleman has told me himself that he cannot move further in
the matter. I am putting these matters forward to show that even the words which have been placed in the Bill to meet the points which previously had given rise to so much controversy and dispute did not settle the matter, and that even at the present time men are not receiving unemployment benefit although they actually come within the scope of this particular quotation.
Our point is that a lock-out is a trade dispute, the same as a strike. Consequently, if those who are engaged in a trade dispute are not to be entitled to benefit, that includes a lock-out. I am not saying at the moment whether I personally agree with that point or not, but am putting it forward as a statement of fact that, if the term "trade dispute" is to cover those who are to be ineligible to receive unemployment benefit, then the point which the Minister of Labour sought to raise against my right hon. Friend the Member for Platting (Mr. Clynes) is not a point that can be called anything but a debating point. It does not hold in the realm of industry, because both a lock-out and a strike are considered to be trade disputes, and, therefore, would be covered by any form of words which the right hon. Gentleman agrees to bring forward. Here are men compelled to pay out of their weekly wages contributions to an unemployment scheme. They are told, under that scheme, that when they are unemployed their contributions, plus those of their employers and those of the State, make up a fund which will guarantee to them a certain payment for a certain period of their unemployment. The men agree—they are forced to agree. They pay their contributions, and then, when a dispute comes along in which they are not involved and upon which they are not asked to take a Vote—a dispute in which their union may not have been given any consideration by the other unions involved in the dispute— then, because they are working in the same establishment, or it may be in a different establishment altogether or in a different building far removed from the work that is done by the men who are out on strike, and because the employer dismisses them and may write upon their dismissal tickets that it is due to a strike in a particular craft, when they present themselves at the unemployment exchange they are refused that to which they are justly entitled, namely, the unemployment benefit for which they have
been paying. Surely the Ministry of Labour has a drafting department that can bring forward words to meet the situation. The Minister understands the point. He has shown in the Committee upstairs that he understands it, and again in his speech here this afternoon. Why, then, does he always hide behind the form of our Amendment? Why does he not say, "I recognise the point. We do not wish to do any injustice to any body of workmen. They are paying for their benefit, and they are justly entitled to it. The Amendment moved by the Labour party does not cover the point; it enables non-unionists to come under it"? That was the point raised. Why is that?

Dr. MACNAMARA: Because they have not withdrawn their labour.

5.0 P.M.

Mr. MACLEAN: If that is the difficulty, cannot the right hon. Gentleman suggest a form of words that will cover it? He can, and his Department can, but because they do not wish to do it they shelter themselves and quibble at words and refuse to do justice to thousands of men who are walking the streets to-day, signing their names at the unemployment exchanges, and who are refused benefit for weeks and months because they have been locked out or dismissed owing to the joiners' strike on the Clyde and in other parts of the country. I hope the right hon. Gentleman is not going to trifle with the matter further. I hope his Department is not going to trifle with the matter further. I hope he is going to do justice to men who are paying their contributions and have a perfect right to the unemployment benefit they are paying for when they are thrown out of work through circumstances over which they have no control. If the words we have used do not meet the difficulty, do not throw it back upon us that we must meet the employers and agree with them upon a form of words. We have put down generally what we consider to be words which meet the situation. The Minister says they do not. Very well, let his Department find better words. I am convinced the Labour Department can find words to suit the situation, and the Labour Party will accept the words which he is prepared to bring forward.

Colonel PENRY WILLIAMS: I want to join once more in the appeal to the
Minister of Labour to meet this very real hardship in the case of men thrown out of employment through no fault of their own. I rather resent the suggestion which has been made both by the Minister and by the mover of this new Clause that the employers' representatives have refused to admit the principle.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I never said that.

Colonel P. WILLIAMS: I think the Minister concurred in the statement made from this Bench. I think the House is entitled to some statement as to what negotiations have been going on on this point and what employers have refused to consider the principle of this Amendment. I have never yet met an employer who looked forward to the winning of a dispute by the starvation of his workpeople and by the starvation of their wives and children. I do not believe any dispute is ever settled by starvation. On the contrary it has made many disputes much more bitter. If any large body of employers have refused to come to an agreement with my hon. Friends on this point, will the Ministry take steps either to compel them or to allow any trade that is prepared to agree, to agree to exempt themselves from the provisions of this Act? After all, there are many employers who consider that if they have to pay insurance money for their workpeople—be it compensation for accidents or provision for unemployment—when the occasion arises on which the workman is entitled to draw benefit, then he ought to have it. When a man is thrown out of work, if he does not get any benefit, his labour deteriorates, and his employer, when the dispute is over and the man returns to work, is at a disadvantage as compared to the position he would have been in had the man drawn unemployment benefit. I believe that in 1914, when this matter was being discussed in the House, it was admitted by the spokesman of the Board of Trade that only a very small percentage of unemployment benefit was due to this cause, that is, to strikes where the man is not directly concerned. I believe it is only about 4 per cent. We, on that occasion, tried to put into the Bill a provision which would make it permissive for the Board of Trade to consider these cases and determine whether a man was entitled to benefit or not. Now I would suggest to my right hon. Friend that he might
leave it to the Umpire to decide whether a man is directly concerned in a dispute or not. The employer knows who is concerned in a dispute, the workmen's union knows, and I do not think it would pass-the wit of man for the Ministry of Labour or the Umpire to find out also. I hope my right hon. Friend will meet the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Miles Platting on this point.

Mr. HAYDAY: This is perhaps one of the greatest injustices perpetrated in connection with the Unemployment Insurance Act. I cannot understand the position taken up by the Minister of Labour in this connection, because evidently his Department agreed that there is an injustice which should be remedied. The workman, representing the second partner to the undertaking, points out the grievance which he suffers from. Two out of the three partners to the great insurance undertaking agree that some remedy should be forthcoming. The third partner for the moment stands aside. He stands aside, perhaps, for the perfectly obvious reason that the Labour Minister had not in my opinion yet made any attempt to call the employers and the workmen together with a view to getting an agreed form of words dealing with this particular matter. What the Minister says is this, "You go to the employers, and if you two agree, come to me and I will consider what you have agreed upon." It is the business of the Department to call such a representative conference. My right hon. Friend knows how difficult it is to get any representative body of employers together at this moment. Every industry is in the throes of trouble and dispute, and any such conference with regard to one industry would not satisfy the others. I do not think it would be a right thing to do, even assuming you could get the engineering employers to agree upon the words. I do not see how that could be accepted, because it would be binding upon all the other sections of industry throughout the country. But I suggest that there is no need for such a conference. If the Labour Ministry and the workmen's representatives agree there is an injustice, why wait for some time to pass before you attempt to remedy the matter?
I want to repeat a point I put in Committee to this effect: In the main there is from 80 to 90 per cent. of semi-skilled and labouring sections affected adversely
in matters of dispute, and through which they are disqualified. To make the position a little plainer, let me take the case of the large foundries connected with furnaces throughout the country. If you have a dispute at a furnace and throw out perhaps a thousand other hands in the foundry department, they can all come on to unemployment benefit; but let 100 moulders in the foundry department have a dispute and throw out 900 other classes of labour, because the dispute is just that one degree nearer to their actual occupation, they are all disqualified from receiving benefit. Take another instance. The switchboard attendants in a big generating station may have some trouble with the employers; it may be by being authorised to withdraw their labour or being authorised to resist some terms which the employers are trying to press upon them. The switchboard attendants are comparatively few when taken in relation to the total number of employés in the generating station. But unless switchboard attendants can be found to replace them the hundreds of remaining workmen, such as labourers, boiler firemen, and the rest that go to make up the component parts of the operatives in a big power station, are rendered idle in a dispute which directly affects ten men, and they are all thrown out of benefit. It is nothing short of a standing disgrace, because these men are not only the victims as between the employers and the section engaged in the industrial trouble, but they are further punished by a Government Department. They have paid contributions under terms which they believe have assured them some benefit, but when they have occasion to require that benefit they are told, "No, because you have been employed at a place where there is a dispute, you are part of that dispute in the general sense, and we cannot admit you into unemployment benefit." I think that is distinctly unfair and something should be done to remedy the matter. My right hon. Friend says, "Oh, but you have the nonunion men." It is the argument he used upstairs. I agree with my hon. Friend there are very few non-union men, but there may be one here and there who may take up that position. But assuming it is an engineering department that is engaged in a wage dispute, and assuming a non-unionist says, "I do not want to leave, I am not going to leave," the em-
ployer says, "Whatever terms are settled will equally apply to you as to the rest of the men; if there is an advance in wages you are covered by that advance, and if I impose a reduction the reduction will equally apply to you because it is an engineering department and you are an engineer and that craft is in dispute." Therefore his labour is involved, and he is a direct disputant whatever you may say to the contrary. The right hon. Gentleman also put the point of the lockout, and finds fault with the words as if they could not apply to a lockout. My right hon. Friend knows quite enough about the industrial unions of the country to know that a lockout is described as a state of dispute where the men have been authorised to resist some imposition that their employer desires to place upon them.
The mere fact of that body being authorised to resist is his guide for saying, You are in a dispute and you cannot come under the Unemployment Fund. The hon. and gallant Member for East Middlesbrough (Colonel P. Williams) said it ought not to be difficult to let the matter go to a referee. It is where the difficulty happens when it goes to a referee. There is appeal after appeal before courts of referees and then before the Umpire, but because they are tied strictly by the terms of the Act they have no latitude at all in the matter.
I believe it is quite easy to discriminate who are actually in a state of dispute. The employer notifies the Exchange and the trade union notifies the Exchange. Assume that a section of men whom I am representing are in a state of dispute. I go at once to the Employment Exchange and notify them that a certain department at a certain place is in a state of dispute, in order that they may not unwittingly send men there to take the places of those who are in the dispute. The fact of my notifying that notifies the section that is in dispute, and sure if that, act of that section throws another few hundreds or thousands out who are not direct participants, the Employment Exchange would have the machinery to consult the employer and consult the official who is engaged, through his men, in the dispute, and they could both give an answer to the Employment Exchange as to just what sections are directly engaged in the dispute and what sections are thrown out in consequence of the dispute at their place of employ-
ment. The right hon. Gentleman ought to take the bull by the horns and not wait for the employers. The employers have quite enough on their hands at the moment in negotiating wage settlements or differences in almost every industry. They are devoting practically all their time now to seeing to what extent wage reductions can be enforced, so that it is quite impossible to get them together in the present atmosphere of the industrial world with a view to dealing with a Clause similar to this, especially where there is a little embittered feeling beginning to come in, and unless the Department can call such a representative conference—take the initiative, call them together and say, "I want a decision upon this"—I feel something ought to be done to protect the innocent victims of industrial trouble. I thing you ought, together with the men's representatives, to find suitable words. We are all three partners with equal responsibility, except that the State is prepared to accept less responsibility than it ought. If you cannot do that, certainly let us have a Clause which will protect those whom everyone in the House who has spoken up to now appears readily to admit are victims. It is cruel to impose upon them hardships such as are imposed if the Clause remains as it is.

Lord R. CECIL: I cannot help thinking the Government would be well advised to meet this point. This seems to me to be just one of those cases where there is a real injustice, not perhaps of very extensive importance as a matter of money, but a real injustice which is likely to rankle and to embitter relations between capital and labour and the Government, for no adequate reason that I can understand at all. Let me repeat what I understand to be the point put forward from the Labour benches. They say this: "It is conceded as a general principle that a man who is thrown out of work by a trade dispute in which he is not concerned ought not to be deprived of unemployment benefit." That is the general principle on which the Act has proceeded. That seems just. But there is one exception. It may be that he is thrown out of work because some other people engaged in the same factory, but doing a different class of work from his, hold up the whole work of the factory by reason of a dispute. In that case he is
deprived of unemployment benefit. I do not understand that the Government deny that that is an injustice. They admit it. There clearly is, if you once concede the principle that a person who is thrown out of work by a trade dispute in which he is not engaged ought to be dealt with for unemployment exactly on the same footing as any other person who falls into unemployment for a reason over which he has no control. I may be wrong about the details, but I will use a case which has been cited in Debate by way of illustration—the case of a joiners' strike in the shipbuilding trade. Because the joiners will not do their work in consequence of a trade dispute, the whole of the work is held up in a ship. If the joiners happened to be in the employment of a different firm from the rest of the people engaged on the ship, the rest of the people would get their unemployment benefit, but if they are employed by the same firm, and it is all one undertaking, they do not get it. No one can defend a state of the law which will produce that result.
The answer of the Government, as I understand it, is two-fold. They say the words suggested by the Amendment would not accomplish what is desired. They say, quite truly, if a man is only to be deprived of unemployment benefit if he withdraws his labour, that would not cover the case of a lock-out. That seems to be a good point. It is also said it would not cover the case, for instance, of a non-union workman who would go with the rest engaged in the same kind of work. Speaking with only outside knowledge I do not think the words would quite meet that case. But surely some such words as these, "a man who has lost his employment because he is directly engaged in a trade dispute"—some general words of that description indicating the intention of Parliament and leaving it to the umpire to see that no injustice is done in a particular case, are required. I agree that it is impossible to define, and in English legislation we are very foolish if we attempt to define absolutely everything you want to do. What you want to do, particularly in this kind of case, is to give the umpire an indication of what you really mean and let him work out the details. If you said only those who were directly engaged in a trade dispute should suffer loss of unemployment benefit, or some words of that kind, I believe that would deal with the
two objects of the right hon. Gentleman, and I should have thought would have been quite adequate for the purpose. At any rate I am certain that if the right hon. Gentleman went to his draughtsman and his technical advisers and said, "This is the case that is made against us; we want to meet it, draft us some words to do so," the right hon. Gentleman will not say it could not be done. Of course it could be done. It is not so frightfully difficult and complicated a problem as to defy the expert advisers of the Government.
But the right hon. Gentleman really puts forward quite a different objection, which is the reason for my taking part in the Debate. It really raises a question of rather important principle. He says, "We will not meet this case unless the employers and workmen can agree on a form of words to meet the grievance." I think that a very improper answer to make. It is not really the business of employers and workmen to legislate. It is the business of Parliament to legislate. By all means let them consider what those engaged in the trade have to say—and I have only heard one employer take part in the debate so far; I hope others will if there is an objection of which I know nothing—but it is surely for this House, and the Government no doubt, to say what words are necessary to meet an admitted injustice, whether or not the employers and the workmen are able to agree. I insist on that, because I think there has been a great deal too much during the present administration of this doctrine that things are to be settled outside by some bodies meeting in Downing Street, or elsewhere, and the House of Commons is to be presented with a fait accompli and told they cannot interfere with the arrangements which have been come to. I have always protested and always will protest against it. Now we are carrying it a little further, and the Government are saying to the House of Commons, "You cannot legislate on this point because an agreement has not been reached." Not only are we to be told in many cases "you have to take whatever has been agreed upon," but now we are to be told we are not able to legislate because an agreement has not been reached. I think this is not really a maintainable position for the Government to take up. I am sure they are making a great mistake to allow this kind of little
sores to go on disturbing the relations of capital and labour. We have not really too great a margin in this matter, and I earnestly appeal to the Government to meet this case, which seems to me a case of justice and just the kind of case which embitters men's minds, and above all, not to tell the House of Commons that they cannot legislate because the workmen and the employers are not agreed.

Mr. JOHNSTONE: I took part in the discussion last year, when I rather inclined to the view taken by the Minister, but on fuller consideration of the whole subject since then, I have come to a different point of view. I have been much impressed by the argument used by the leader of the Labour party to-day. I should have liked after last year's discussion if the employers and trade union representatives could have agreed upon some form of words which would satisfy the right hon. Gentleman, but I quite agree that, failing agreement between employers and trade union representatives, it is the duty of the right hon. Gentleman to decide the question himself. He sympathises with the grievance, and undoubtedly a grievance exists. Too much stress cannot be laid on the fact that the men are compelled to pay unemployment insurance, and when a man is thrown out of work through no fault of his own, it must undoubtedly rankle in his mind that he has been defrauded of the benefits for which he is compelled to pay. I cannot follow the position of the non-unionist. I have always found, as an employer in connection with trade disputes, that a non-unionist followed one of two courses. He either threw in his lot with the trade unionists and went out on strike, or he remained at work. If he went out on strike, of course, he participated in the dispute and could get no unemployment benefit. I have never known an employer in the course of a strike, where a non-unionist remained working for him, to dismiss him, or of a non-unionist going to a labour exchange and asking for unemployment benefit on that account. I have never known of any employer being so foolish as to dismiss a man who remained on while the bulk of the men went out. The non-unionist, as a rule, participates in the benefit when the unionists go out on strike. If a demand is being made for improved conditions, shorter hours, and higher wages, there is no differentiation made between
the unionist and non-unionist. Even supposing the non-unionist remains at work, he benefits by the efforts and sacrifices of the men who have gone out on strike to enforce better conditions.
There is certainly a grievance and something ought to be done to meet it. The case of the moulders' strike has been mentioned. That strike caused a vast amount of trouble in many industries and led to many men being temporarily suspended from work. Take the engineering trade. The moulders are quite a different trade from the engineers. The moulder could not do the work of the engineer, and the engineer could not do the work of the moulder, but the engineers were thrown idle because the moulders went on strike. Why should not an engineer receive his out-of-work benefit under those circumstances, when through no action of his own, but through the action of another organised body of workmen, who struck in order to get benefits for themselves, the poor unfortunate engineer was thrown out of employment? I can visualise a certain industry where about eight or ten different trades are occupied in producing a single article. In the production of that article the eight or ten different craftsmen are engaged, and they are all interrelated, so that if one branch of trade in that factory ceased work, the rest would gradually be paralysed. The employer might go on for a little time with his other departments, but eventually all his departments would be affected. In a case like that, where men employed in the other departments are taking no part in the dispute, but are the helpless victims of the action of others, why should they not be entitled to the unemployment benefit for which they have paid, although they are producing the same article in the same works where the dispute has arisen? They have clearly a claim to unemployment benefit.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not lightly ride off with the position that, having given a warning to representatives of labour last year, and the employers and the men not having agreed, that he will do nothing. He should do something. As was suggested by the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil), he could consult both parties before he came to a final judgment, in order to ascertain their views.
He ought not to leave the matter where it is to-day. There is a real and undoubted grievance, and it is the duty of the Minister to bring forward some proposal that will settle this question for all time. The one great issue is that if a man is compelled by the State to pay unemployment insurance premiums, he ought to receive unemployment benefit if he is thrown out of work through no fault of his own.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: I wish to join in the appeal that has been made to the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider this question. As a Member of the Committee last year, I remember the discussion upstairs, and I would remind the House that practical agreement in principle had been arrived at by both sides. The Minister himself said that the only stumbling block was the particular form of words which should be drawn up. On that point he said, "I am arranging a conference between the employers and employed." It was the general feeling of the Committee that from that conference an agreement would be come to before the Bill passed this House, and it was a great disappointment that the negotiations broke down, and that no words were brought forward on Report. Bad as that was, it is doubly unfortunate that nearly a year afterwards the Minister is still unable to find that form of words which will translate into the Act a principle which is admitted by the majority of the House. It is rather significant that the Minister in this discussion stands alone. From all sides, from all sections, there has been striking unanimity in favour of the principle which the Minister accepts, but which he says he cannot translate into law because the employers are against it. We have been assured by the senior Member for East Middlesbrough (Colonel P. Williams) that only a small section of employers are standing out against it. Surely, it is the duty of this House to lgeislate and not to wait until all the parties who are going to be affected by the legislation are agreed as to the effect it would have upon them. When the Government bring in other measures in other walks of life, the doctrine is not put forwards that they are to wait until everybody affected is in agreement. Very little legislation would be carried out if that were the case, and, possibly, some people would be very pleased. Why
differentiate? Why, when you are dealing with this particular question, should you proceed on lines which are totally different from the lines on which you proceed when you are legislating on other matters?
I hope that my right hon. Friend may even yet see his way, after consulting his advisers, to find some form of words which will establish the principle which is approved by the House and which would meet the difficulties which the Minister has pointed out. Let the House settle the broad general principle that the non-combatant shall not be the sufferer in this case, and if the suggested difficulties arise let the referee settle them. Surely it is a recognised rule of civilisation that neutrals are not to be sufferers, and if we can apply that law to international affairs, we have surely advanced far enough in our industrial life to say that in industrial warfare the neutrals shall not suffer. There are many inequalities under the present law. There was a case during the moulders' strike. The general labourer in the steel works and the labourer in the foundry were treated differently. The general labourer in the foundry was debarred from benefit while the general labourer in the steel department of the same works received unemployment benefit. Both were members of the same trade union, both had paid their weekly contribution to their unemployment benefit, neither of them was in any way a participant in the dispute, but there was this great inequality that one received unemployment benefit, and the other did not. The right hon. Gentleman says that if we make the proposed change it will give rise to abuse. Surely there are very many abuses under the present system, and I am sure that you would have lesser abuse and injustice under the proposed system than you have under the present system. If the particular form of words suggested is not acceptable, it is the duty of the Minister to find words in order to safeguard the difficulties which he says would arise. Let him accept the broad principle and then let words be found to carry out that principle.

Mr. T. GRIFFITHS: I want to emphasise the arguments of the Noble Lord. Representatives of labour and employers of labour have suggested that some form of words should be put in to cover the demand that has been made, and in addition we have had an outsider
like the Noble Lord asking the Minister to settle the point, even if the employers and representatives of the men cannot agree. We have been told that it is only a small number of employers who are not agreed. I believe they are not expressing the opinion of the general body of employers. It is the duty of the Minister to get a form of words that will deal with the question. There is an injustice to be dealt with. I have had experience in these matters for 21 years, not so much experience of strikes but experience of stoppages where men have kicked over the traces, and have caused others to suffer. I fail to understand why the Minister cannot do something in order to meet the grievance in this case. There are only three ways in which a stoppage can take place. In the first place the employers can give the men 28 days, seven days, or one day's notice of a lockout. On the other hand, the men can give 28 days' notice to terminate their contract. Those are the legal methods. Then there is a third method, the illegal stoppage of men who sometimes kick over the traces. It often happens that other men suffer because a certain number of men have given 28 days' notice, or another body of men have kicked over the traces and have come out because they refuse to accept some arrangement made between representatives of the men and the employers either in the office or in the Conciliation Board.
Let me give illustrations to show how my members in South Wales are concerned. Take the case of large steel works employing 1,000 men at the steel furnaces and mills, and as labourers, and, say, 12 bricklayers. These 12 men give notice to stop. That involves a dispute at that place, and perhaps 1,000 members of my society would be affected. And because of this dispute in that particular department with these operative bicklayers my 1,000 men are not entitled to a single penny benefit, though they have paid their contributions in accordance with the Insurance Act. I take another case. In South Wales there are steel works that produce steel bars which are used to manufacture tinplates. On the other side of the road there are tinplate works which buy these steel bars from the steel works. A dispute takes place with 10 or 12 fitters or engineers in these particular steel works. All the tinplate men are thrown out of employment
because of this dispute, and these men do not get their insurance money. But on the other side of the road, where the steel bars are bought, the men are also thrown out of employment, but because they are not participating in the dispute, from 200 to 300 of my men will get insurance benefit, while the men in the tinplate works do not.
That is a monstrous position. If you have 1,000 men thrown out of work as the result of action by 12 bricklayers or engineers, and not allowed to draw their insurance benefit, could you blame them for asking for some themselves in order to draw strike pay from their society? You are simply inducing more strikes. You remember the dispute in the Ebbw Vale, in connection with which the men who were out for weeks and weeks never received a single penny benefit. Your way out of the difficulty is this. Here are, say, 1,000 of my men who are not implicated in the dispute, who will at present be paid by my society their lock-out benefit. You can rely on trade unions not to throw their money away, but always to make a full investigation to find out whether the man is qualified before they pay the money out. If the trade union society pays the lock-out benefit to its members who have not been implicated in the dispute, I would suggest it would clear the air very much for the Government to make these men entitled to benefit if they are thrown out of employment when they are not implicated in the dispute. I ask the Minister now to take the responsibility upon his own shoulders. Employers are advocating that he should do it. So are representatives of the men, and we also have got impartial outsiders like the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil) asking the right hon. Gentleman to take the responsibility of including words in this Clause to ensure that justice shall be done to these men.

Lieut.-Commander WILLIAMS: Many of us, if we were looking at this question in a superficial way, as some are apt to do, might agree with the speeches which we have just heard, but those of us who have had to follow closely in this House over and over again the leaders of the socialist trade union movement, will not do so. Hon. Members of that party from time to time put forward the plea that
labour should have a greater share in the prosperity of the industry in which it is engaged. That is a very sound line, but as regards the position of the Minister to-day, we must consider the profits which can be afforded to be taken out of an industry, out of the price of the goods sold, for payment of the wages in that industry. That is really the point we have got to look at in any trade disputes. You must know the price at which you can afford to sell the article. If you have got a certain works you must look at it not from the point of view of one section of the workers, but of everyone engaged, from the manager downwards, and, that being the case, the real trouble with which we are faced at present is not, as certain people would wish to make out, that the Government is wrong, but that the trade unions and the organisations to-day, instead of being organised on the basis of a factory and what it turns out, or on similar lines, are organised so as to cut right through many branches of trade, and in this way, by that form of organisation, are making it increasingly difficult at present not only to carry on industry, but to find out in each particular factory or other form of industry, shipyards if you like, the real cost of production and the real amount which can be paid out in wages.

Mr. SPENCER: Is the hon. and gallant Member in order in discussing these questions which are irrelevant?

Mr. SPEAKER: I will listen to the hon. and gallant Member a little more carefully.

Lieut.-Commander WILLIAMS: No doubt I may be causing some anxiety, but I am the first Member to stand up for the position which the Government have taken up, and I do so because I am convinced that the real difficulty with which we are faced here is that the hardship involved on the men who are thrown out of work is not the fault of the Government, but is entirely the fault of the hopeless organisation of the present leaders of the trade unions.

Sir W. PEARCE: The discussion this afternoon produces a feeling of disappointment so far as the probable effect of this whole Bill is concerned. Hard cases have been put with great force, and I am afraid that they cover quite a large number of people. Therefore if the
Government were able to meet this point it would cast a very much greater liability on the Bill than at present exists. Therefore I feel found to strike this note of caution that increased liability can only be met either by increasing contributions, reducing benefits, or getting more money from the State. Considering the large amount of the contribution, which is 1s. 3d. a week, and the small amount of the benefit, I had serious qualms about supporting the Bill and I voted against it on Second Beading, because it does not seem to me that the results of the Bill are in any way in proportion to the magnitude of the disadvantages which it involves. If you increase the liabilities to meet these hard cases, and thus have to increase the contributions or reduce the benefit, then you will make this Bill, which is bad enough already, even worse than it is at present. Having been in business all my life, I would say that it is a matter for serious consideration as to whether this Bill gives any advantage sufficient for the very large expenditure which it involves on the State, and I felt bound to point out that any further increase in liability meant increased contributions or reduced benefits.

Mr. J. JONES: The more I hear of this Debate, the more I am inclined to agree with the hon. Member for Limehouse who has just addressed the House. This Bill is like giving a plaster for a wooden leg. It is an attempt to stave off the inevitable. Some of us on these benches are not going to apologise to the hon. and gallant Member for Tavistock (Lieut.-Commander Williams) for our opinion. I am a Socialist because I believe that Socialism is the only method by which social problems can be solved. But this is an Insurance Bill, and when in Committee upstairs I suggested that we were getting money under false pretences a large number of the Members seemed to be impressed with the impossibility of my having any sense of reason. I say that when you claim that a man shall pay into an insurance fund with the almost inevitability that he shall never receive any benefits therefrom, that is imposing on the forbearance of human nature.
I represent a body of organised workmen who are almost bound in all these great industrial disputes to be automatically prevented from getting benefit. Labourers work in every trade. They are
associated with every industry, and because a body of skilled tradesmen or semi-skilled workers may have a dispute with their employers—it may be a lock-out or a strike—these men automatically find themselves prevented from receiving the benefits which they have been taxed to provide. We are entitled to ask, Why should we find money for other people to draw benefit when we ourselves are disqualified?
6.0 P.M.
That is the gravamen of our case. We never went out of the way to advocate insurance against unemployment. We on the Labour Benches are not advocates of post-dated cheques on the bank of futurity. But the Government decided that they could not find useful work for men and women to do, and as a method of dealing with the problem of unemployment they brought in a National Insurance Bill. I am not an insurance company director, as you can judge by looking at me, but, as I understand insurance, when you pay your subscriptions week by week, or month by month, or quarter by quarter, you expect to receive benefits in return in accordance with the terms of your policy. The Minister of Labour has been one of the principal directors of this scheme. He was one of its great advocates when it was first introduced. We have read his speeches and heard his promise of a happy land. Now we find that that happy land is "far, far away." But the workers were compelled to agree to the scheme. They believed that the-longer they lived the more they would get. Now they discover that what they are offered is Dead Sea fruit and that the more they pay the less they get. The more the worker pays, in proportion to the increased cost of everything he has to buy the less he is going to get. With increased unemployment there are to be increased contributions, and with the dearness of food and the high cost of living he will get less out of the scheme.
What is going to happen now? There is a great industrial dispute threatened in the engineering trade. I hope it will never fructify. Personally I would regret it. But where do the labourers stand? A ballot is now being taken. Numbers of the labourers, recognising the inevitable, are prepared to accept reductions in wages. But stronger and better organised bodies of workers will reject them. What will be the result? Thousands upon
thousands of labourers will be thrown on the streets although they themselves have balloted in favour of accepting some kind of reduction. Those labourers will be automatically refused benefit under this Bill. Can the Ministry of Labour defend that position? These labourers have paid their subscriptons for years, but thousands of them will be automatically prevented from drawing any benefit under this Bill because of a dispute with which they have nothing to do. We are not asking for charity; we are asking only that the goods shall be delivered. We are asking that the benefits for which we have paid shall be given to us. If the Minister of Labour was secretary of a trade union and the members demanded their benefits and he could not pay them, I would not like to stand in his shoes. Our trouble is to meet our members and to explain to them the difficulties with which we are faced.
I was present on a recent evening at a meeting of one of our branches with a membership of 7,000. There was a large number of our members present. They wanted to know how they stood in this matter of unemployment, and to have an explanation as to how it was that if certain bodies of workmen were out of work when they were not concerned in any dispute they could not draw unemployment benefit. They asked questions as to the future. They do not wish to continue to be the victims. If National Insurance means that they are always to be placed in the gutter in the case of these great industrial disputes, we want to know why they are being compelled to pay for benefits which we shall never receive? The hon. and gallant Member (Lieut.-Commander Williams) introduced other matters into the question. I believe we could settle all these problems if we could only sit down together, provided we were prepared to recognise the economic fact. After all, the workers are able to solve these problems for themselves if only they have intelligence enough to use their power effectively, and then the hon. and gallant Member to whom I have referred would not be here. We are moving this Amendment on behalf of the ordinary labourer or the men not directly involved in a dispute. It might be a mechanic who is affected. In a case where labourers struck and the mechanics had to come out, how would the mechanics stand? There ought to be some Regulation whereby all
men who pay into an insurance scheme would have their position defined, and when they are not directly responsible for a dispute they ought to draw benefits for the money they have paid.

Mr. SPENCER: Once or twice the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill has indicated that the Government were prepared to give consideration to any suggestions coming jointly from the employers and representatives of the employed. In itself that is an admission of the justice of our case. Surely that justice should be met by the Government. It is not enough for the Government to admit the justice of our claim and then to try to evade responsibility. The Minister of Labour said more than once in Committee that if employers and employed could agree upon any form of words to meet this point he was prepared to give it very careful consideration. The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that our difficulty is to get the other side to agree to a form of words that will receive his blessing. Justice is overwhelmingly on our side, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that he cannot answer our case. I could give him a case in Nottingham where we have had a strike in a furniture factory. The lower grade workmen had struck. Some of the higher grade work was sent to another factory to be done, and the whole of the men in that higher grade factory were prevented from getting unemployment benefit when the lower grade men in the other factory struck work. The Government ought to remedy such a defect in the Act. It is not right that that duty should devolve upon us. I have a letter in my pocket from a man who has paid his contributions under this insurance scheme for years. He is a painter, who worked in a colliery long before the miners' dispute began. He is a non-union man, who paints agricultural implements, mining implements, and everything. When the miners were locked out he could not get unemployment benefit, and has been out many weeks without a single penny; nor has he received any trade union money, as he is not a member of a trade union. Could an injustice be more gross?

Mr. SPEAKER: Hon. Members are repeating each other's arguments.

Mr. W. THORNE: I think we have a right to complain of the silence of the Government. There have been speeches
made from both sides, from employers and from representatives of the workers, and not a single word has been uttered by the Government in reply. In consequence of the promise made by the Minister of Labour in Committee some of us were under the impression that the Government would have found a form of words acceptable to all concerned. It appears that the Government have made up their minds that they will make no concessions whatever. The reason for that is that they have whipped up their big battalions. We know that when we get into the division lobby we shall be defeated by an overwhelming majority, but I suggest that if any Member of this House went down to his constituents and took a plebiscite of the workers in his own division he would find an overwhelming majority in favour of the position we are putting before the Government. The Government ought to give some reasons for not accepting this suggestion. They give no reasons whatsoever. They have not even told us that they think our suggestion would cost a large amount of money. They have not even mentioned an approximate amount of money. What is the Minister of Labour shaking his head about? If it is not a question of money what is the difficulty? Why is the right hon. Gentleman so obstinate? I hold that it is a monetary consideration and the Government ought to tell us frankly what this concession will cost.
This concession will not cost the money that is anticipated. Let me give the House an illustration. My colleague the hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) has referred to the fact that a dispute in the engineering trade is anticipated between now and Thursday next. Such a dispute will affect not only craft union men but labourers. At the same time there are a large number of workers who will not be affected one way or another, whose wages will not be cut down if there is a general reduction and whose wages will not be advanced even if those of the craftsmen and the labourers are increased. A large number of men, and of women also, will be involved in this unfortunate dispute if it takes place on Thursday, although they are not directly concerned. They will not be entitled to any pay from their own organisations unless there is some special rule to that effect, nor will they be entitled to unemployment benefit. I would say without hesitation that in the course of the
ensuing 12 months this concession would not cost the Government more than £200,000 at the very outside. I should like to know why the Government are standing against the proposal. It has been suggested that it is because the workmen and the employers cannot agree. I think the Government are merely shielding themselves behind that statement because there is an employer of labour on their own side of the House who has said he is quite agreeable to the concession being made. If you take off the Whips and let us have a free vote you will find a majority in favour of this proposal. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] Then let the Government allow us to have a free vote on it. The Government are afraid to do so and feel they are in duty bound to put on the Whips, because they know a majority of Members feel this to be a concession which should be granted. In view of the attitude taken up by the Government I suggest to my colleagues that this Debate should be carried on until the Closure is applied.

Mr. J. DAVISON: I appeal to the Minister of Labour to adopt the suggestion made from this side. It is not generally recognised—or if it is recognised it does not seem to impress the Members of this House—that the present abnormal period of unemployment will pass away, and the expenditure with regard to this concession would not be as great as some hon. Members seem to imagine. When the Insurance Act was introduced, for the first 16 months there were 1,434,000 applications for unemployment benefit, and I think the average payment during those 16 months was 6s. per person. To-day I know the payment is considerably greater, but that is because of the proportion of contributions now being made by the respective parties contributing to the scheme. It will be generally agreed that justice is the fundamental basis of civilised society and that a man paying for something may ask in return to be paid the benefit to which he is justly entitled. I hope the House will listen attentively to the recital of an instance I am going to quote to them, which should make every employer of labour chary about voting against the proposal put forward by the Labour party. In 1919 we had a great industrial dispute: 2,000,000 workmen were parties to an agreement with the employers and about 30,000 of those workmen decided to
go on strike. It was pointed out to them that they were parties to an agreement with the employers, whereupon they asked the employers to terminate this agreement by three weeks' notice. The employers consented to the termination of the notice, as far as that particular union was concerned. That union then decided to strike and they were out on the streets for 18 weeks. During the strike vast numbers of men belonging to the engineering industry were thrown out of employment. They had no voice whatever in that strike. They had not balloted upon it. They were never asked their opinion as to whether it was right or not. Frankly, I, as a member of that particular union, opposed the strike, because I thought it was a fatal policy. However, it went on, and time after time during 1919 in this House both myself and other Members of the Labour party raised the question with the Government as to whether the men thrown out of employment by the action of those who had gone on strike, but with whom they had no connection whatever so far as the strike policy was concerned, were to be denied the benefit to which we thought they were justly entitled. Every one of those men was denied the benefit, yet every one of them, with the exception of the 30,000, remained loyal to their agreement with their employers.
How are you going to get workmen in the future to observe the sanctity of agreements if you demonstrate to them that as a reward for observing the sanctity of such agreements you are going to penalise them because a section may decide to strike? You will impose upon people who are simply the victims of circumstance the intolerable burden of being, not only thrown out of employment, but deprived of that sustenance which is vital to the maintenance of their own physical efficiency and the decency of their own wives and children. Surely we ought to have arrived at the stage of realising that we should deal with these matters in this Assembly without the sanction of employers or of workmen. We represent not only the workmen and employers, we are the servants of our constituents, and are responsible to those constituents for the legislation we pass in this Chamber. I urge upon the right hon. Gentleman, in the interests of the
employer as much as of the trades unions who subscribe to the Insurance Scheme, to accept this Amendment.

Sir GODFREY COLLINS: The House, I believe, is willing to accept the Amendment if it is assured that the Insurance Fund will not be severely drained. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no!"] There is a general feeling in the minds of certain hon. Members that this Amendment, if carried, will upset the Insurance Fund. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] I thought that feeling existed in the House, and I wish to direct the attention of the House to the effect that this Amendment will have on the Insurance Fund. As the House is aware, the Amendment is in regard to men who are indirectly thrown out of employment through trade disputes. The first question which arises is, what percentage of men are on the Unemployment Fund through trade disputes? In July, 1914, the Minister in charge of the Department informed the House that only 4 per cent. of the individuals that came on the Fund at that time, came on the Fund through trade disputes, and 96 per cent. came on the Fund through economic unemployment.

Dr. MACNAMARA: In what year?

Sir G. COLLINS: In 1914. [HON. MEMBERS: "A normal year!"] Four per cent. of the total benefit to be paid in the coming year would be £2,000,000 or £1,250,000, because, according to the White Paper, the total benefit to be paid amounts to £47,000,000. The Amendment, however, is a much smaller thing. Whether it be that one in ten are thrown out of employment indirectly through trade disputes, no one is in a position to say exactly, but several hon. Members speaking with the experience gained through many years of connection with particular trades, have stated in the course of the afternoon that only one in ten will be affected by the operation of this particular Amendment. Therefore, if what I am putting to the House is at all within the range of accuracy—

Sir F. BANBURY: It is not.

Sir G. COLLINS: Will the right hon. Baronet state in what way?

Sir F. BANBURY: Because the hon. Gentleman is taking the year 1914. [HON. MEMBERS: "A normal year!"]

Sir G. COLLINS: I am quite willing to increase it by 100 per cent. if the right hon. Baronet thinks that will be a more accurate figure. It will then be £3,500,000 and if the number affected is only one in ten it will represent a sum of about £350,000, taking the hon. Baronet's proposition that unemployment will be doubled. If the hon. Baronet considers that unemployment will be more than doubled, then the whole scheme of the Bill falls to the ground, because the finance of this Bill is based on a 10 per cent. unemployment.

Sir F. BANBURY: It has fallen to the ground.

Sir G. COLLINS: I am not anxious to detain the House unduly on this Amendment, but I am anxious to show that, while the point raised is one which intimately concerns large numbers, there is not a large sum involved in the acceptance of the Amendment, and I shall have pleasure in voting for it.

Mr. ROBERTSON: I am not going to repeat the arguments of my colleagues in connection with this question. I am not aware that this Amendment is being opposed on the ground of the cost. I suppose if it were a case of compensating railway shareholders there would be no trouble about cost, but it is not the real question in this case. Men have paid into an unemployment insurance scheme for which they have no responsibility. What we are asking the Minister is that they should get some return for what they have paid. What is his objection? When this question was discussed in Committee it was never argued on the ground of cost. The difficulty about a question of this kind is that when discussion upon it is dragged out for any length of time, we are apt to get away from the real question. The Minister has asked us if we cannot agree with the employers on a certain form of words. There are three parties to this question. There is the Government, there is the employer, and there is the workman. We say the responsibility rests on the Government, but notwithstanding that, the workmen's representatives have gone to the employers to try and agree upon a form of words, so that when men are thrown out of employment through no fault of their own they will get the benefit to which they are entitled. If the employers had endeavoured to agree with
the workmen, there might have been some reason for the right hon. Gentleman's attitude, but as a matter of fact the employers are even worse, because they refuse to consider it at all. Surely in those circumstances the Government are in honour bound at least to make an attempt to find a form of words that will get for these men, and especially the low-paid labourers, some justice for the money which they have paid into the Insurance-Fund. It is not good enough merely to remain silent. When a calamity is on us with regard to unrest, we get the effects, of this silence. Answer the point we have put to you. The employers have refused, and therefore we say that you are in honour bound to find a form of words to meet the position.

Mr. A. SHORT: I enter my protest: against the failure of some responsible Member of the Government to rise and defend still further the position taken up by the Minister of Labour. He complained about the words of this Amendment, and said they did not meet the situation, that if they were included in the Bill they would not have the effect suggested by the Mover. A form of words, has been submitted by the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil), who, I believe, is a member of the legal profession and knows something about the meaning of words and their interpretation, and I should have thought the right hon. Gentleman would have put up someone to answer this case. On the other hand, he has hidden himself behind some presumed or suggested possible agreement between the employers and the representatives of the men. I take the view that it is for this House to decide, and not only that, but the right hon. Gentleman himself admits the justice of this question, and it is for him to find these words. For what do we employ the Attorney-General? He is the most distinguished legal luminary during the last 18 years, a man who has made his mark, and no man has made a bigger mark in the legal profession than the Attorney-General. Is it beyond his power to find' suitable words to meet this situation1? I can remember during the dispute which has been referred to by the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. J. Davison) that the-late Member for Duncairn (Sir E. Carson), who has now gone to the other House, made repeated appeals to the Government to remove this wrong and
this injustice. It is a very simple matter, yet the right hon. Gentleman comes down here and talks about the form of words. I am ashamed of him, that he should suggest that because one individual, a non-union member, might provide a difficulty, it is impossible to find a solution of this problem.

Dr. MACNAMARA: In these words, I said.

Lord R. CECIL: Will you suggest other words?

Mr. SHORT: We must attempt to bring home the responsibility. We know there are a number in this House and outside, representing employers, who do not desire any agreement at all upon this matter, for the simple reason that in a dispute where a large number are thrown out and where many of their factories are closed down altogether, and it may well be that the majority of their workpeople are not entitled to benefit because of this disability, they hope that because a majority of their workpeople are suffering, with no possibility of gaining anything, because they have no interest in the dispute, this weapon will be used as a bludgeon to force the minority back to work. At Darlaston the nut and bolt trade had a dispute caused by the employers giving notice to a section of their employés, girls and women, that they would reduce their wages up to 13s. a week. As soon as the girls and women refused to accept the reduction and went out on strike, as they were entitled to do, the employers immediately closed their factories and locked out the remaining workpeople. When they applied for unemployment benefit and I would remind the House "These were not merely employés working in special departments, but employed in and throughout the entire factories," they were refused benefit. They had no interest in the dispute. They did not stand to gain or to lose by the dispute, but they were locked out, and as a result, under the present rules and regulations, they were not allowed to draw benefit under this scheme, though they had paid for it. Not only is it monstrous, but it is criminal that we should be sitting here denying what is purely a matter of justice to the working people of our country.
The right hon. Gentleman cannot defend it, and he has not defended it. He dare not
stand at that box, and he dare not put up his Parliamentary Secretary to defend it—at least, not on grounds of morality. He may defend it because he says he cannot find words, but he is really depending on the big battalions to go into the Lobby and support him and thus defeat a just claim. If I found myself in that position, I should leave that Bench. This is a most serious matter. It may be all right for people who have never been in this unfortunate position, but when I think of the disputes I have been engaged in myself, and of this dispute to which I have referred, a dispute caused by women striking to refuse to accept a reduction up to 13s. a week, and married men with wives and large families depending on them refused benefit under the Act which they have paid for, is it something with which we can really be satisfied? I appeal to hon. Members on all sides of the House not to dismiss this lightly and without consideration. Those who have sat through this Debate and have listened to it, if they follow the dictates of their reason and judgment, will go into the Lobby with us, but we know, of course, as is frequently the case, that a large number of Members will come in when the bell rings and vote against us, without due knowledge and without regard to the facts and considerations that have been put forward from the Benches on all sides of the House. A case has been put up for this Amendment stronger than ever in the history of this subject in this House, and I again ask the right hon. Gentleman to put up someone to defend his attitude. If he has not confidence in his Parliamentary Secretary, let him send for the Leader of the House, and let us have him here to defend a policy which is not only criminal but immoral.

Mr. SEXTON: I want to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to a point that has not been mentioned so far. It was brought seriously before his predecessor when the 1920 Act was first brought in, and I want to tell him now that this refusal to recognise this plea is by inference setting up a blackleg system of labour. On the Second Reading of the 1920 Act, the question was raised on this side: Supposing the railwaymen went out on strike, and the dockers were thrown out of employment as a result, and supposing men supplied by the Government, in the case of a national dispute,
or supplied by anyone else, came to do the railwaymen's work, the excuse of the docker would be gone, because the goods would be coming down to him, and if he refused to handle the goods sent down by blackleg labour he would be disqualified from receiving any unemployment benefit. That is a fact that has not yet been answered. Supposing to-morrow the seamen and firemen struck, the ships would be tied up, but blackleg seamen and firemen can be got to suit the purpose for the time being of the shipowners, and if the docker refused to go on board a ship sailed by blackleg seamen and firemen he would be struck off the unemployment benefit list. These things ought to have some consideration. I do not want to prolong this discussion, because I intend to speak at length on another Amendment. But I do want to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to give some more tangible answer or explanation of the position.

Mr. WATERSON: I desire to express, not only my consternation, but my very great regret at the non-intervention in this Debate of the right hon. Gentleman. As a matter of fact, we have had practically no reply to the various statements that have been made from this side of the House.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman is not entitled to travel beyond the Amendment; neither are hon. Members entitled to repeat one another's speeches.

Mr. W. THORNE: We want to fetch up the Front Bench.

Mr. WATERSON: I was endeavouring to speak upon proper lines, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. SPEAKER: Perhaps; but the hon. Gentleman is not entitled to indulge in repetition.

Mr. THORNE: We want a reply from the Front Bench, that is all!

Mr. WATERSON: In the question contained in the Amendment there is a question of principle. It is not to us simply a matter of finance. We feel that these things are due to the Government seeking to violate a principle that the right hon. Gentleman should not lightly cast to one side. I fail to understand the attitude of the Government. Practically only one
Member of the Government has taken part in the Debate—

Captain STANLEY WILSON: Because the Minister is listening to the same speeches, one after another, from your side.

Mr. WATERSON: When one hears the interjections, and notices the beaming countenances of hon. Members opposite, it does appear to us that we only are taking this matter seriously. We cannot accept it as any light thing. We have been, as a matter of fact, through the same experiences that many of these men and women are passing through. On the ground of humanity, justice, and equity, we have, I think, a right to ask the Government to concede, not something in the shape of preferential treatment, but to concede a principle. When this Bill was first discussed on the Floor of the House, we on this side asked the House not to allow the Minister to leave himself the opportunity or privilege of varying the rate of benefit. We said at that time that when a strike or a dispute took place that at the first opportunity the employer would utilise blackleg labour. What then would follow? The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour shakes his head, but I ask him to read the Report of the Debate. He seems to deny the statement, but I suggest to him with very great respect that I am quoting the speeches correctly then made. There was a railway dispute. What was the first thing done? We found that the out-of-work donation paid was immediately varied—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman's remarks are not relevant to the Amendment, and I again ask for less repetition.

Mr. S. WALSH: I desire to say a very few words, mainly on the point made by the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil). The Government uses certain compulsory powers. It places before the nation and the workers a particular prospectus. In that prospectus it says, "You must pay, and here are the conditions of payment, and of benefit." The only people who desire compulsory powers in this matter is the Government. The people must comply. One of those conditions is that certain benefits shall be given in the event of unemployment. To whom? To the unemployed who are
employed through conditions over which they have no control. The right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Measure admits the equity of the claim for unemployment benefit to be paid to those who are out of work through no fault of their own. But he goes on to say that if the thing is admitted in actual fact many more dangers will be introduced in addition to those against which they are trying to guard. That is the whole thing. The right hon. Gentleman does not run away, but he throws the responsibility upon the two other sections who have been compelled to come into the bargain.
The employers are not asked whether they will contribute, but are told by the right hon. Gentleman that they must. So with the workpeople. They are not willing parties. Many of us think the principle is wrong, and thought so 10 years ago, and fought against it. It is wrong now. But that point at the moment is not before the House. The point is this, that the Minister in charge of the measure admits the equity of the claim, but he says: "Look at the whole of the conditions; look at the interdependence of the various sections of labour upon itself, so to speak; if one particular section is out of work it necessarily throws other people out of work, therefore, we cannot pay benefit without introducing other dangers." Then he says that for the avoidance of these other dangers he will throw the responsibility upon the employer and upon the workmen. He does, but he is making all three parties pay! It is he who is using compulsion. It is he, as the representative of the State, therefore, upon whom responsibility properly falls to provide against this particular danger of which he speaks. First of all do justice. The equity of the claim is admitted. The dangers may be admitted, but surely justice comes first? The Act is not fair to this House. I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary—whose ability is recognised by everyone—heard the statement made by his chief. If not, he must have heard that made by the Noble Lord. It is the duty and responsibility of the Government to provide for this kind of difficulty and not to pass it on to others and say: "I am convinced there is a case, but for myself I do not propose to do anything unless you other two people, whom I have compelled to a
bargain, make arrangements between yourselves." That is not fair play. That is simply evading Ministerial responsibility and endeavouring to throw upon the people generally who were not willing participants in the bargain a responsibility that they should not bear.
In doing this, what else are you doing but putting a fraudulent prospectus before the nation? There are tens of thousands of workers who under no possible circumstances have any responsibility for a stoppage, but are simply the victims of it, who are never consulted, whose representatives have never been asked to take part in any discussion, and you put them in the present position on the score of the interdependence of labour! It was perfectly well known when you issued your prospectus that all ranks of labour are interdependent, and that many people who would never have the slightest chance of saying a word must of necessity be thrown out of employment in certain circumstances. In the commercial world such a prospectus not being adhered to would be described as a fraud. An insurance association holding out conditions such as the Government held out would at a later date be charged with issuing a fraudulent prospectus if they tried to evade their responsibilities, just as the Minister in charge is trying to do. Surely we are entitled to have a reply from the Parliamentary Secretary. The real point is this, that the Minister is prepared to take the advantage, but not the responsibility. That is quite a new Parliamentary doctrine. There has been, with only one possible single exception, no one who dared to get up and say that the case put forward by the Labour party and by hon. Friends on this side has not been based upon the plain evidence.
7.0 P.M.
The Minister admits the equity, but suggests that the difficulty of administration is very great. That is a very weak plea. You have in your office able men and that particular difficulty should not be difficult to overcome. In settling this you will do more than settle that difficulty; you will develop in the hearts of men and women, who by the million are compelled to pay, the feeling that after all Parliamentary responsibility remains in this House, and that the Government are doing their best to meet the real difficulties of the situation. You say that others should do the work for which the
Administration exists. This is a very weak attitude. It is a wrong attitude and not at all in accordance with those doctrines of Parliamentary responsibility of which at one time the right hon. Gentleman in charge was the most powerful exponent. I understand the right hon. Gentleman himself cannot speak again, except by leave of the House, but we should be very pleased to hear what the Parliamentary Secretary has to say, as to whether he is in full accord with his Chief or whether, since the Minister in charge made his earlier statement, some change has taken place. The overwhelming sense of the House, however, and the fact that the right hon. Gentleman acknowledged the equity of the claim, demand that before we go to a Division we should hear what the Parliamentary Secretary has to say. [HON. MEMBERS: "Reply!"]

Mr. HODGE: I appeal to my right hon. Friend to reply to the arguments which have been put forward. I believe a Bill which has come through Standing Committee gives the Minister in charge the right to speak again, even without the indulgence of the House. Be that as it may, however, the Parliamentary Secretary can reply. I want to put forward another instance of the inequality of the Act as it stands at present. One of the greatest industries in this country is the iron and steel trade. As many hon. Gentlemen know, there are big steel works in this country without blast furnaces attached. In steel works to which blast furnaces are attached, as they are practically under one roof and belong to the same firm, if the blast furnacemen strike the other men in those works do not receive unemployment pay. In the event, however, of a strike occurring in steel works where there are no blast furnaces attached, those men get unemployment pay. That is a demonstration of the inequality of the Act as it at present exists. There are many similar inequalities, such as those mentioned by the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. Short). I really think we have made a strong case for the acceptance of the Clause by the Government. If my right hon. Friend will say that between now and when the Bill comes

up in another place he will give the matter further consideration and make an endeavour to meet the case put forward to-night, we shall be perfectly satisfied with such an undertaking.

Mr. HALLS: Whatever there is to be said upon this issue could have been well covered in the first hour of the Debate. I listened very attentively to the defence of the right hon. Gentleman, but in my opinion he made a very poor case. In fact, he admitted that the whole of our case was proved. I shall be surprised if hon. Gentlemen dare to go into the lobby against this Amendment. Outside the House we often hear a good deal about Parliament, and the question is discussed whether the people of this country still respect Parliament as they used to do. I have always understood and I still believe that it is the object of Parliament to put on the Statute Book laws that seek to carry out certain ethical principles. It has been admitted on every hand here this afternoon that morally this is a good case. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Nobody in my hearing has attempted to disprove that these men are entitled to unemployment pay in the circumstances that have been referred to. In my opinion the whole case has been proved. If hon. Gentlemen who come to this House to legislate in the best interests of this country want Parliament still to be respected by the people then, our case having been proved, they ought to feel under an obligation to go into the lobby in support of the Amendment. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!" and "Divide!"] I submit to those who try to prevent us giving utterance to our views that the case is proved all round. I hope, for the sake of their own credit, that hon. Gentlemen will support the new Clause and will try to do what is right in the interests of the people who are compelled to pay. If men are compelled to pay to make provision for certain contingencies that may come along, then it is dishonest on the part of the Government to do them out of their moral rights.

Question put, "That the Clause be read a Second time."

The House divided: Ayes, 104; Noes, 144.

Division No. 198.]
AYES.
[7.8 p.m.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis D.
Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.


Bagley, Captain E. Ashton
Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Breese, Major Charles E.


Banner, Sir John S. Harmood-
Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Briant, Frank


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Bethell, Sir John Henry
Cairns John


Cape, Thomas
Irving, Dan
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le Spring)


Carter, W. (Nottingham, Mansfield)
Jephcott, A. R.
Roberts, Frederick O. (W. Bromwich)


Casey, T. W.
Jesson, C.
Robertson, John


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord R. (Hitchin)
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Rose, Frank H.


Clay, Lieut.-Colonel H. H. Spender
Johnstone, Joseph
Royce, William Stapleton


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Seddon, J. A.


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Sexton, James


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Davies, A. (Lancaster, Clitheroe)
Kennedy, Thomas
Sitch, Charles H.


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander J. M.
Smith, W. R. (Wellingborough)


Doyle, N. Grattan
Kenyon, Barnet
Spencer, George A.


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Lawson, John James
Spoor, B. G.


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
Lowther, Major C. (Cumberland, N.)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Murray Fraser


Edwards, Hugh (Glam., Neath)
Lunn, William
Taylor, J.


Galbraith, Samuel
Macdonald, Rt. Hon. John Murray
Thomas, Brig.-Gen. Sir O. (Anglesey)


Gillis, William
Maclean, Rt. Hn. Sir D. (Midlothian)
Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham)


Glanville, Harold James
McMicking, Major Gilbert
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)


Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Mallalieu, Frederick William
Tootill, Robert


Gritten, W. G. Howard
Mills, John Edmund
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Grundy, T. W.
Morgan, Major D. Watts
Waterson, A. E.


Guest, J. (York, W. R., Hemsworth)
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness and Ross)
Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.


Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Myers, Thomas
Wignall, James


Hallas, Eldred
Newbould, Alfred Ernest
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Halls, Walter
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Hayday, Arthur
O'Connor, Thomas P.
Wilson, James (Dudley)


Hayward, Evan
O'Grady, James
Wilson, W. Tyson (Westhoughton)


Henderson, Major V L. (Tradeston)
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. William
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Hinds, John
Palmer, Major Godfrey Mark



Hirst, G. H.
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)
Mr. Arthur Henderson and Mr.


Hogge, James Myles
Pinkham, Lieut.-Colonel Charles
Neil Maclean.


NOES.


Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.
Gibbs. Colonel George Abraham
Nicholson, Reginald (Doncaster)


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Gilbert, James Daniel
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Nield, Sir Herbert


Ashley, Colonel Wilfrid W.
Gould, James C.
Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.


Atkey, A. R.
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Parker, James


Baird, Sir John Lawrence
Greig, Colonel Sir James William
Percy, Charles (Tynemouth)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Gretton, Colonel John
Philipps, Sir Owen C. (Chester, City)


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray


Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Pratt, John William


Barlow, Sir Montague
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Reid, D. D.


Barnston, Major Harry
Hanson, Sir Charles Augustin
Remnant, Sir James


Beauchamp, Sir Edward
Harmsworth, C. B. (Bedford, Luton)
Richardson, Alexander (Gravesend)


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Bennett, Sir Thomas Jewell
Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)
Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)


Betterton, Henry B.
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Robinson, Sir T. (Lancs., Stretford)


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Bird, Sir A. (Wolverhampton, West)
Hills, Major John Waller
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Blair, Sir Reginald
Hoare, Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. J. G.
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur


Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy
Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)


Bowles, Colonel H. F.
Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. A. (Midlothian)
Scott, Sir Samuel (St. Marylebone)


Brown, T. W. (Down, North)
Hopkins. John W. W.
Shaw, Capt. William T. (Forfar)


Buchanan, Lieut.-Colonel A. L. H.
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Horne, Edgar (Surrey, Guildford)
Smith, Sir Harold (Warrington)


Burn, Col. C. R. (Devon, Torquay)
Horne, Sir R. S. (Glasgow, Hillhead)
Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander


Butcher, Sir John George
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)


Cautley, Henry Strother
Hurd, Percy A.
Stewart, Gershom


Cecil, Rt. Hon. Evelyn (Birm., Aston)
Hurst, Lieut.-Colonel Gerald B.
Sugden, W. H.


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W.)
James, Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Cuthbert
Terrell, George (Wilts, Chippenham)


Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)


Churchman, Sir Arthur
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell (Maryhill)


Coats, Sir Stuart
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Thorpe, Captain John Henry


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Tickler, Thomas George


Colfox, Major Wm. Phillips
Lloyd, George Butler
Townley, Maximilian G.


Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)


Conway, Sir W. Martin
McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)
Williams, C. (Tavistock)


Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.
Williams, Col. Sir R. (Dorset, W.)


Denniss, Edmund R. B. (Oldham)
Marriott, John Arthur Ransome
Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud


Du Pre, Colonel William Baring
Mitchell, William Lane
Wilson, Capt. A. S. (Holderness)


Edgar, Clifford B.
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz
Wilson, Col. M. J. (Richmond)


Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
Morden, Col. W. Grant
Wilson-Fox, Henry


Evans, Ernest
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.
Winterton, Earl


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Morison, Rt. Hon. Thomas Brash
Wise, Frederick


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Morris, Richard
Wood, Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)


Fell, Sir Arthur
Morrison, Hugh
Woolcock, William James U.


Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Ford, Patrick Johnston
Murray, Hon. A. C. (Aberdeen)
Younger, Sir George


Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Murray, C. D. (Edinburgh)



Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Nail, Major Joseph
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Gee, Captain Robert
Neal, Arthur
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.




McCurdy.


Question put, and agreed to.

NEW CLAUSE.—(Amendment of Part II of First Schedule to 10 and 11 Geo. V, c. 30.)

Part II of the First Schedule to the principal Act as amended by the Second Schedule to the Act of 1921, shall have effect as though there were inserted at the end of paragraph (d) thereof the following words: "and provided further that in the case of employment under a local or other public authority the Minister may, if any enactment relating to the superannuation of persons in that employment provides for the aggregation of service in that employment under two or more employers, whether the service has been continuous or not, treat such service for the purposes of the foregoing provision as if it had been service in the same employment."—[Sir R. Newman.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Sir ROBERT NEWMAN: I beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The object of this Clause is to enable those working under the authority of a Poor Law administration to be able to continue their unemployment benefit from one authority to another. As the matter stands, if an employé under a Poor Law authority has been employed in that administration for three years they can get out of the liability of the Act, but as the law stands, if an official gets promotion after five or six years he has to go back again and start all over again as far as contributions under this Act are concerned, and that seems to me to be absurd.

Lieut.-Colonel BUCHANAN: I beg to second the Motion.

Dr. MACNAMARA: As I stated in reply to the first Amendment, there are certain classes excepted by the Schedule and certain others that may be excepted. In its original form my hon. Friend's Amendment was much too wide, but I should have no objection to accepting it in the amended form, which will give him what he wants.

Sir R. NEWMAN: I have proposed it in the amended form.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Then I will accept it.

Mr. SPENCER: Does this mean that certain sections will have a right to contract out?

Dr. MACNAMARA: No.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

CLAUSE 1.—(Rates of Unemployment Benefit.)

(1) While this Section is in force unemployment benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 and 1921, shall be at the weekly rates of fifteen shillings for men and twelve shillings for women, or such other weekly rates as may be prescribed, instead of at the rates provided by Section one of the Act of 1921, and paragraph (6) of the Second Schedule to the principal Act shall have effect as originally enacted, instead of as amended by the Second Schedule to the Act of 1921.

(2) This Section shall come into operation on the thirtieth day of June, nineteen hundred and twenty-one, and shall continue in force until the expiration of the deficiency period.

Mr. J. ROBERTSON: I beg to move, in Sub-section (1) to leave out the word "fifteen," and to insert instead thereof the word "eighteen."
I know the argument that I may be met with in moving this Amendment. I shall be told that this is a question of finance, that a certain amount has been budgeted for on the payment of 15s. a week, and that if you alter that amount it will require more money. I do not think that is a difficulty that cannot begot over. If this House is of opinion that the amount paid should be 18s. instead of 15s., then I think the difficulty can be got over. I know, in connection with others matters, when it is a question of finance, there is no difficulty in getting a sufficient sum of money.
My second point is what it costs the State. As a matter of fact, insurance does not cost the State one single penny. As regards the difference between 15s. and 18s., the extra 3s. does not cost the State anything because the employer and the workman pay, and the State pays a contribution, but, in the long run, the workman pays, not only his own contribution, but also the employer's contribution as well as the contribution paid by the State. All that the State does—and this is never denied in any quarter in connection with unemployment insurance—is to set up the machinery to collect the money, and in this case all you are asked to do is to collect a sufficient sum to pay 18s. a week instead of 15s. a week.
From the point of view of the State we shall have the argument of economy. To most Members of this House the difference between 15s and 18s. a week may not mean very much, but there is all the difference in the world in thousands of eases, and an extra 3s. a week may mean
in poor families that many a child will get its breakfast, when its father is unemployed, that otherwise would not get any breakfast. The question of economy was discussed a little earlier in connection with another part of this Bill, when the difference was pointed out between married men and single men, and there was a proposal made that the men with families should get more benefit than the men without families. There is another way in which you can economise. Supposing you do not take that way, you are doing it just as assuredly as if you put it into operation. Men are compelled through no fault of their own to be unemployed, and they are only getting 15s. per week, and no one suggests that they can maintain a family on that amount. The result is that they have to economise in another way. I regret to have to say it, but the purposes are exactly the same and reach the same end.
There is one way which has been suggested elsewhere. When a man is unemployed surd he is willing to work it is the duty of the State to make provision for him, and yet you refuse to set up the machinery. If a man has children and cannot keep them, why not put them out of existence? I know hon. Members will shudder at that proposal, but if you have the power and not the will, and only arrange to pay a sum that will introduce disease and ultimate death into the home of a humble worker, you are just as much responsible for killing that man's child as if you had taken its life in other ways. There is not a single individual in this House who dares to defend a paltry payment like this to an unemployed workman. The original sum was £l per week. Economy has been argued, but you cannot have economy as far as a working man is concerned if you do not keep him fit as an effective working machine. With regard to this Amendment all that you have to do is to use the machinery of the State so that the worker will receive 18s. a week instead of 15s. a week. Hon. Members opposite say that they sympathise with the unemployed. If that is so, let them show it in the proper place, and that is by going into the Lobby and voting for 18s. per week instead of 15s.

Mr. MYERS: I beg to second the Amendment.
It is an insult to offer the sum which is provided for in this Bill as
unemployment benefit. When we consider the cost of maintaining a pauper in a Poor Law institution or a convict in one of our prisons, and compare that with what we are offering to a law-abiding citizen who happens to be unemployed for the moment, the comparison is all against the provision made by this Bill. I will make a further comparison which I have made before. We have servants of the State performing military duties, and when there are no active military duties we keep our soldiers in the best of lodgings, with good clothing, free medical attendance, exercises and recreation to keep them efficient and up to the standard in case they may be required for active service. Just in the same way it is desirable that steps should be taken in the best interests of the country to keep the able-bodied workmen up to a standard of physical efficiency from the point of view of health in order that they should be ready and able to render service to the community when required. If the finances of this Bill are such that only 15s. a week can be paid, then it is up to the Minister to so adjust the finances of the Act as will enable this larger sum to be granted to the men who are out of employment.

Dr. MACNAMARA: My hon. Friend told the House that the State paid nothing under this Act and only put the machinery in motion. I would remind the hon. Member that the State contribution under this Measure amounts to £7,750,000.

Captain O'GRADY: Who are the State?

Dr. MACNAMARA: The taxpayers and the community. My hon. Friend said that the State contributed nothing. My reply is that it contributes £7,750,000. In Committee we went into this matter pretty fully, and I pointed out that this proposal to raise the amount of the benefit, together with the proposal to increase the benefit to the women, would cost an additional £9,000,000, assuming the contributions to be raised as fixed in the Bill. But I have heard that my hon. Friends intend to move to reduce the contributions proposed in the Bill by one penny in the case of men and women and a halfpenny in the case of boys and girls, and that would increase the cost in the year from £9,000,000 to £11,000,000 or £12,000,000. I have to look at this proposal from the point of view of its effect
upon the finances of the scheme. I did not refer to the question of finance in the Debate as to the refusal of benefit to men unemployed in connection with trade disputes, but here I am bound to look at the whole financial structure of the Bill. Under the Measure I shall have borrowing powers to the extent of £20,000,000. Assuming there are 1,250,000 persons unemployed on an average week by week for a year ending in July, 1922, I shall run into debt under the scheme to a maximum of £16,000,000, and if the series of Amendments to which I am alluding were carried I should in that case run into debt to the tune of £25,000,000, or £5,000,000 beyond my borrowing powers.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: How long does the right hon. Gentleman say it will take him to run into debt to that extent, and on what basis of unemployment?

Dr. MACNAMARA: On the basis of 1,250,000 people being unemployed for a whole year up to July, 1922. This proposal and the next one, if carried, would involve me in £5,000,000 debt beyond my borrowing power of £20,000,000. Under the scheme I shall be committed to borrowing £16,000,00. The raising of the benefit to men and women will cost another £9,000,000, and if the proposal to reduce the contribution is carried I shall run into debt to the extent of £27,000,000. Much as I dislike the reduction of the benefit, I am bound to ask the House to reject this Amendment and the other proposals associated with it, because it would mean that in the very first year of the operation of the Act I should have to exceed my borrowing powers by a possible maximum of £5,000,000, and that would be fatal unless the contributions were increased. My hon. Friends, however, so far from agreeing to an increase in the contribution are proposing to reduce them, and will thereby make the position still worse. The State contribution is fixed by the Financial Resolution at 3¾d. in the case of men and 3¼d. in the case of women, and therefore the only thing would be to increase the contribution of the employer. Under the Bill the man pays 7d. and his employer 8d., and the 10d. for health insurance brings the amount up to 2s. 1d. If I were to increase the contribution of one or other or of both in order to give the increased benefit of 18s. and 15s., I should have to bring the totals up to 2s. 5d.

Captain O'GRADY: You could do it for very much less.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I really cannot ask the House to agree to raise the amount to 2s. 5d., and I am not sure that I would be in order in touching the contributions at all. Remembering what my borrowing powers are and the difficulties I should be placed in if this and the associated Amendments were carried, I have no option but to ask the House to reject this proposal.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: There is a very old and very true saving which runs, that those whom the gods wish be destroy they first make mad. When I read the Bill we are now discussing, with the proposal to reduce the benefit from £l to 15s. to the unemployed workman who is idle through no fault of his own, the most charitable explanation and excuse that suggested itself to my mind for the action of the Government and of the right hon. Gentleman, who is such a distinguished Member of it, was to be found in that old saying. The Vote just given, in which the Government majority was reduced to 40 in a House constituted as this is, shows that there are others who share my views and who are trying to get away from the asylum. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that it pains and grieves him to reduce the benefit and to refuse this very modest Amendment. I know how sincere on this question the right hon. Gentleman always is, and I would ask him, therefore, why does he maintain his portfolio as Minister of Labour, if he does not agree with this reduction and if he realises what harm it will do to the working population, and especially to the children of working classes? Why is he not brave? Why does he not resign? Why does he not come over here? He must know that if he were to resign on a question of this sort he would become one of the most popular ex-Members of the Government. He tells us he cannot accept this proposal because it would cost so much money and run him into debt to such a great extent that he would have to borrow more money with State backing, which would injure State credit and cost the taxpayer something. He has told us that the adoption of this Amendment and of the succeeding one to increase the benefit for women, as well as of the proposal to reduce the contribution, would increase the burden to £27,000,000 before the end of July next
year. That is the biggest possible sum he felt he could mention. This particular Amendment is going to cost £8,000,00.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I said these proposals would increase the cost from £16,000,000 up to £27,000,000 or £28,000,000.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Yes, and on Thursday this week we are going to be asked for just that sum for the Arabs in Mesopotamia.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member would appear to be introducing King Charles' head once again.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I am afraid there are many King Charles' heads, and I usually mention one in connection with expenditure in a greener land than Mesopotamia. Here we have a situation in which, owing to the many blunders of the Government, we have a great number of unemployed, and as a result the Unemployment Fund is already in debt. It is not the fault of the unemployed; it is the fault of the Government, and I say the country ought to pay, and this Amendment ought to be accepted. I expected a much better reception for the Amendment, especially after the Vote just given. My hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Mr. Myers) spoke of what it costs to keep a pauper in the workhouse and a prisoner in gaol. We know perfectly well it costs more than twice the amount which the Government propose to allow an unemployed skilled workman with a family. On the Order Paper to-day there was a question which challenged the advisability of paying Post Office messenger lads under the age of 15 more than the amount it is proposed to allow to able-bodied skilled workmen, and yet the Government propose to resist this Amendment!
From a purely Machiavellian point of view hon. Members who sit around me ought to welcome the reply of the Minister of Labour, and if they are counting the days when they may be called upon to form a Government, if they think they could do better than the present Government, then they ought to be secretly glad that the Government are bringing forward this Bill. But I know as a matter of fact they prefer to consider the sufferings of the people who will have to live on the 15s. as of far greater importance than
their own advancement in the political field. Quite apart from tactics of that sort, therefore, I intend to support them in their endeavour to get the benefit increased. We may hear from members of the Anti-Waste party that this is an extravagant proposal in view of the present condition of the country's finances. I submit that it is not extravagant. The greatest extravagance of which one can be guilty nowadays is to spend his capital. The capital of this country consists of the producer, of the men who do the work, and if you are going to spend your capital by reducing the subsistence level of the very great numbers of men and women out of employment to-day you are going to be guilty of one of the worst forms of extravagance. This extra money which is asked for could be found out of the income of the nation, by reducing extravagances in other directions, which I should not be in order in going into now, and which I shall not even mention, because I have tried to bring them to the notice of the House so often. As long as we can afford to spend these vast sums on unproductive and harmful expenditure, it is useless to attempt to go to the people of the country and tell them that the unemployment benefit has got to be cut down. You cannot explain what I regard as a breach of faith to the men who have been paying their contributions up to date on the understanding that, if they are out of employment, they will receive 20s. a week, and who, if they are thrown out of work on the 1st July, will receive the reduced amount. You cannot explain that while you are spending vast sums on these other harmful adventures. I spoke just now of certain hon. Gentlemen seeing the red light of the impending downfall of the Government, but I hope that in most cases it is something' more noble than simply a fear of being implicated in the disgrace of right hon. Gentlemen opposite. I hope that those hon. Gentlemen who supported us last time will support us again from humanitarian motives, and not from party motives or tactical motives at all. I appeal to them, and also to others, to base their vote more on the sufferings of their own fellow countrymen than upon the pleas as to economy and debt raised by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. WIGNALL: I regret that the Minister of Labour has not taken a more
sympathetic view of our claim than that expressed in his speech. We all know that we cannot expect, under the existing abnormal conditions, that the unemployment insurance scheme should be a financial success, but, considering the exceptional circumstances that exist at the present moment—the great slump in trade, the great mass of unemployment, and the extraordinary conditions under which we are living to-day—the debt that would be contracted in maintaining even the benefit of 20s. a week is a debt that could honourably be contracted, because of the value we should get for it. It is one thing to spend money and get nothing in return, but even to create a debt which means some measure of human happiness and the prevention, probably, of riots and other troubles, is money well spent and a debt honestly incurred, which could be repaid later on. The Government would have to meet in some way the difficulty of this great mass of unemployment. People must have food and shelter, and the Government must face the responsibility. If this unemployment insurance scheme did not exist at all, we should probably have to find many more millions to give away without any return, but in borrowing to maintain an unemployment insurance scheme which at least keeps body and soul together, and enables families to maintain a very meagre existence until the slump has gone by and trade has revived, even if your £27,000,000 were £120,000,000 of debt it would be a debt well incurred and money well spent, and you would get more than good value for it. I know it is useless to say these things in the present circumstances, because the Ministry have made up their mind that they are not going to increase it, and the poorest will have to suffer still more. Although it is in their power to relieve that, suffering, they have evidently made up their minds that they are not going to increase it, and I feel that it is a waste of words to try and persuade them to do what we all consider to be just and right in providing for the necessities of those who cannot at the moment provide for themselves.

Captain O'GRADY: I wanted to explain what my hon. Friend tried to put just now with regard to the fact that most of these contributions are paid by the workpeople. I should say that, out of our population of 45,000,000, there are roughly about 30,000,000 under this Act—
manual and clerical workers in the main— and they pay their taxes, and consequently the State is merely paying back. The State actually does not find the amount of money of which the right hon. Gentleman speaks. Moreover, I think employers will agree that what they contribute to this scheme has to be earned by the brains of the employer and by the labour of his workpeople, and I suppose it is fair to say that the employer, like everyone else, seeks to push off his burden on to someone else's shoulders, so that it is fairly clear that at any rate the larger proportion of the 8d. falls upon the workman's wages somehow or other. Here we have a scheme under which the contributions are 1s. 7d. per week, and I venture to say that the workman, in one way or another, direct or indirect, pays at least two-thirds of that money. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to-find any trade union in which the contributions levied for unemployment pay are of that character. I belong to an old skilled union which, in normal times, gave 14s. a week out-of-work pay for 3d. a week. It is true that one only got eight weeks, and then ran on for a six-week's interval, when there was another eight weeks, and one got 16 weeks in the 12 months at the rate of 14s. a week for a contribution of 3d. a week. In the unskilled union with which I am connected we have 1,500,000 unskilled and semi-skilled workpeople. The contribution to the union is; only 6d. a week, and out of that they pay unemployment benefit and other benefits as well. It is clear from the Minister's own statement that a large proportion of this money—I should say 50 per cent.—instead of going in unemployment benefit to the workpeople, goes in administration. The Department is a positive terror to the trade unions from the vast amount of leaflets and instructions and regulations that it issues. I do not know what its printing bill will be for an Act of this character. Besides that, there is the multiplicity of officials. It is clearly the most costly Department in the State, and there is nothing but circumlocution. I know of unions in my own federation that are held up to the extent of something like £80,000, and have been reduced to a condition bordering on bankruptcy, because they are not able to get in proper time the money which they have paid out on behalf of the State. There is an expenditure upon which no
business man could run his business without getting into the bankruptcy court. We plead, on the point that I have put, that for our 1s. 7d. per week we should get 18s.

Dr. MACNAMARA: It is not 1s. 7d.; it is 1s. 3d.

Captain O'GRADY: I am including the State contribution. The workman is paying 7d., and he is only going to get 15s. a week. I think that that is outrageous. I wish you would hand the job over to us. The trade unions would take over the State benefit and pay 18s. a week for a contribution of 7d. from the members. I have tried to put the business side, and not the purely humanitarian side. I do not want to labour that. God knows, it is bad enough, and it has been stated from these Benches. But on the purely business, economic aspect of the proposition contained in my hon. Friend's Amendment I think the Government ought to concede the point and give us 18s. instead of 15s.

Mr. SPENCER: It is true that very little can be said that is new with regard to this proposal after the arguments that have been used this afternoon and in Committee. The right hon. Gentleman says that he cannot meet the increase proposed, because he has not got the money. He says that to do so means that he will be paying a further £9,000,000, which will increase his liability from £16,500,000 to £25,000,000, and his borrowing powers are only £20,000,000. He has also taken up the position that, if it were possible for him to make this increase, it would put off the date of solvency from 1923 to 1924. I think the right hon. Gentleman is over-emphasising the immediate necessity for solvency. If he were disposed to take a more generous view, he could, in my opinion, without extracting anything further either from the State, the employer or the workman, pay the 18s. for which we are asking in this Amendment, but I admit that it would protract the period of insolvency. If the right hon. Gentleman's calculations are correct as regards the date of solvency it would not be indefinitely delayed, but would only be protracted for a certain period. He would automatically, although at a slower rate of progress, come to the period when the scheme would again be solvent. I think he will admit as much
as that, but somehow he seems to be obsessed with the idea of getting his scheme solvent as early as possible. One of his reasons for that is that if he borrows this money he will have to pay a percentage upon it, and that, consequently, the longer the period for which he borrows it, the more he will have to pay by way of interest. I do not think that those two arguments are conclusive arguments which should prevent him from accepting this Amendment. If it meant indefinitely delaying the moment of solvency, there would be something in the argument, but I think he will have to admit that our suggestion does not contain the elements which would make for permanent insolvency. That being so, I think he should make some attempt to meet us, on the grounds that have been already stated.
8.0 P.M.
As has been stated in Committee, this is no scheme of ours. The position we take up is: work or maintenance. In the remote days of savagery, men had a right to go and hunt for their food, and they certainly had a right to enter into competition with their fellow men in hunting that which would feed them. It has been left for more modern times to devise schemes of civilisation which prevent a man at any time from applying his energy and skill to win for himself and his family the necessities of life. If we cannot get work for a man—and it is work that we require—we say that it is the duty of the State to maintain that man. It is at least the duty of a State to devise some scheme which will permit men to apply their energies to provide the maximum of production for the well-being of the members of that State. If the Government does not believe in this principle, we have the right to fall back upon the argument of maintenance. Does anyone think for one moment that 15s. or 18s. is sufficient to maintain a family in anything like comfort? It has been argued, and argued truly from each side, that in some instances it takes 33s. a week to maintain a soldier. In the prisons a man can be a disreputable member of our society and we are prepared to pay 28s. to keep him, to which he has made no contribution whatever. But here, after making a contribution—a contribution not merely of money, but a contribution in other respects—the only thing the State can offer in the case of an emergency, when it can-
not even find him any form of work, is this miserable pittance of 15s. a week. There is one contribution we have made jointly, employer and labour, during this War that entitles us to further consideration, and that is excess profits. Excess profits have come absolutely out of industry.

Mr. SPEAKER: That is going much too wide. We are on the Report stage at present, and we must confine ourselves particularly to the narrow points of each Amendment that arises.

Mr. SPENCER: I will not pursue that subject further. But there is one other point I wish to touch upon. If the House, through the agency of its Whips, to-night defeats this Amendment, it will only succeed in transferring this financial burden from the Imperial Exchequer to local rates. It is quite evident a man cannot take 15s. with two or three children and a wife, with rents as they are, with the cost of living as it is, and provide those things which will even sustain physical life and maintain physical existence. He will have to go to some other source to supplement the slender income which will come by reason of these benefits, and he will turn to the guardians, and ultimately part of the liability of maintenance will fall upon the rates. The rates cannot bear any more, and Parliament ought not to take a step to-night which will have that inevitable result. What they ought to be doing in regard to this is attempting to formulate some scheme as far as possible to give work to these men, and if they fail to provide work it should be a moral obligation to give them full subsistence.

Mr. A. SHORT: The right hon. Gentleman opposed this Amendment on the ground of cost, and to stagger the House and frighten hon. Members he estimated that if every Amendment that referred to contributions or benefits, either by the workmen, the employers, or the State, were carried it would increase his liability to somewhere in the neighbourhood of £11,000,000 to £12,000,000. If I recollect aright, he estimated that this particular Amendment would lead to an additional cost of some £7,000,000. He also estimated that for 1921–1922 there would be unemployment in this country to the extent of 1,250,000. Assuming that that is correct—and I certainly doubt whether 12 months hence we shall have 1,250,000 people unemployed—we are invited by
this Bill to reduce the benefits to 15s. per week. That means that 1,250,000 of the population of our country are to be called upon to live on 15s. a week. It is not many months ago since the right hon. Gentleman introduced a Bill to increase the benefit to 20s. a week. Large numbers-of contributors have paid on the understanding that they would receive 20s., but the Minister now comes forward with this Bill to reduce the benefit to 15s. He is afraid of the cost. Does he mean to sit there and say his Government is unable to provide the money for this very laudable purpose? Are we to understand that it is not the function and the duty of the State to provide an even greater contribution than it is now paying to meet the liabilities of those unfortunate citizens who are thrown out of work through no fault of their own? The Government for far less laudable purposes can find money. It can spend it at the rate of £1,000,000 a week on a Defence Corps, which is needless, hopeless, which we do not require, which nobody wanted. When it is a question of something in the Far East you can find millions for that purpose.

Mr. SPEAKER: I would again remind hon. Members that we are on the Report stage. The only purpose of the Report stage is to pick up Amendments that come from Committee.

Mr. J. JONES: We cannot pick up the eighteen bob, Sir.

Mr. SHORT: I would like to point out in my defence that the Minister has complained that it is impossible for the State to increase its liability.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Under the Resolution.

Mr. SHORT: There is nothing to prevent this House from amending the Resolution, and, if the will of the House so decides, the State would be compelled to provide additional money, and it is for that purpose that the Amendment was placed on the Paper.

Mr. SPEAKER: The House is bound by the Resolution which deals with the finance of the Bill.

Mr. SHORT: I quite accept your ruling. However, we are faced with a reduction in the benefit, an increase in the contribution, and I believe also an increase of
200 per cent in the waiting period Having regard to the fact that we have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2,000,000 people unemployed, and over 1,000,000 people working short time, I venture to suggest that this is not the moment to reduce the standard of living

of those unfortunate people. So far as we are concerned we shall be compelled to take the Amendment to a Division, and I hope we shall gather the requisite support of hon. Members.

Question put: "That the word 'fifteen' stand part of the Bill.'

The House divided: Ayes, 141: Noes, 77.

Division No. 199.]
AYES.
[8.12 p.m.


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Morris, Richard


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Morrison, Hugh


Atkey, A. R.
Gee, Captain Robert
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert


Bagley, Captain E. Ashton
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Murray, C. D. (Edinburgh)


Baird, Sir John Lawrence
Gilbert, James Daniel
Nall, Major Joseph


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Neal, Arthur


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Gould, James C.
Nield, Sir Herbert


Barlow, Sir Montague
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.


Barnston, Major Harry
Greene, Lt.-Col. Sir W. (Hack'y, N.)
Parker, James


Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Greig, Colonel Sir James William
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Bethell, Sir John Henry
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.
Pinkham, Lieut.-Colonel Charles


Betterton, Henry B.
Harmsworth, C. B. (Bedford, Luton)
Pratt, John William


Bigland, Alfred
Henderson, Major V, L. (Tradeston)
Reid, D. D.


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Renwick, Sir George


Blair, Sir Reginald
Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)
Richardson, Alexander (Gravesend)


Breese, Major Charles E.
Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Brown, T. W. (Down, North)
Hills, Major John Waller
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Hinds, John
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Hoare, Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. J. G.
Scott, A. M. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)


Butcher, Sir John George
Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Shaw, Capt. William T. (Forfar)


Carr, W. Theodore
Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. A. (Midlothian)
Shortt,- Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)


Carter, R. A. D. (Man., Withington)
Hopkins. John W. W.
Smith, Sir Harold (Warrington)


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Birm., W.)
Home, Sir R. S. (Glasgow, Hillhead)
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)


Churchman, Sir Arthur
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Steel, Major S. Strang


Coats, Sir Stuart
Hurd, Percy A.
Stewart, Gershom


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Sugden, W. H.


Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Taylor, J.


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)


Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham)


Craik, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell (Maryhill)


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Thorpe, Captain John Henry


Denniss. Edmund R. B. (Oldham)
Lloyd, George Butler
Walters, Rt. Hon. Sir John Tudor


Dockrell, Sir Maurice
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon Hull)


Doyle, N. Grattan
Lyle, C. E. Leonard
Wild, Sir Ernest Edward


Edgar, Clifford B.
Macleod, J. Mackintosh
Williams, C. (Tavistock)


Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
McMicking, Major Gilbert
Williams, Col. Sir R. (Dorset, W.)


Elliott, Lt.-Col. Sir G. (Islinoton, W.)
Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.
Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud


Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
McNeill, Ronald (Kent, Canterbury)
Wise, Frederick


Evans, Ernest
Macqulsten, F. A.
Wood, Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)


Falie, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Middlebrook, Sir William
Woolcock, William James U.


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Mitchell, William Lane
Worsfold, T. Cato


Fell, Sir Arthur
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Ford, Patrick Johnston
Morden, Col. W. Grant



Forestier-Walker, L.
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Morison, Rt. Hon. Thomas Brash
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.




McCurdy.


NOES.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Glanville, Harold James
Johnstone, Joseph


Barnes, Major H. (Newcastle, E.)
Goff, Sir R. Park
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)


Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Graham, W. (Edinburgh, Central)
Kennedy, Thomas


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Grundy, T. W.
Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander J. M.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Guest, J. (York, W. R., Hemsworth)
Kenyon, Barnet


Cairns, John
Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Lawson, John James


Cape, Thomas
Hallas, Eldred
Lunn, William


Carter, W. (Nottingham, Mansfield)
Halls, Walter
MacVeagh, Jeremiah


Casey, T. W.
Hayday, Arthur
Mallalieu Frederick William


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Hayward, Evan
Mills, John Edmund


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Morgan, Major D. Watts


Davies, A. (Lancaster, Clitheroe)
Hirst, G. H.
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness and Ross)


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Myers, Thomas


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Hogge, James Myles
Newbould, Alfred Ernest


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
Irving, Dan
O'Grady, James


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Jephcott, A. R.
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)


Galbraith, Samuel
Jesson, C.
Pearce, Sir William


Gillis, William
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Rendall, Athelstan


Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Spoor, B. C.
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Roberts, Frederick O. (W. Bromwich)
Thomas, Brig.-Gen. Sir O. (Anglesey)
Wilson, James (Dudley)


Robertson, John
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)
Wilson, W. Tyson (Westhoughton)


Royce, William Stapleton
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Sexton, James
Tootill, Robert



Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Sitch, Charles H.
Waterson, A. E.
Mr. Neil Maclean and Mr. T.


Smith, W. R. (Wellingborough)
Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.
Griffiths.


Spencer, George A.
Wignall, James

CLAUSE 3.—(Period of unemployment benefit.)

(3) As from and after the thirtieth day of June, nineteen hundred and twenty-one, paragraph (1) of the Second Schedule to the principal Act (which provides that unemployment benefit shall be payable in respect of each week of any continuous period of unemployment after the first three days of unemployment) shall have effect as if the words "the first week" were therein substituted for the words "the first three days," and paragraph (b) of Sub-section (2) of Section seven of the. principal Act (which defines a continuous period of unemployment), shall have effect as if the words "one week" were therein substituted for the words "three days."

(4) The power of the Minister to make Regulations under Section thirty-five of the principal Act shall include power to make Regulations providing, in the case of any persons who are insured at the commencement of this Act, for the transition from the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Acts, 1920 and 1921, to the provisions of those Acts as amended by this Act.

Mr. SPEAKER: The next Amendment I propose to call is to leave out Subsection (3) of Clause 3.

Mr. HAYDAY: There is. an Amendment in my name to Clause 2—to leave out the words "twenty-three," and to insert the words "twenty-two." Is that not in order?

Mr. SPEAKER: I was not proposing to select that Amendment. It seems to cover the point of the solvency of the fund, which has been dealt with by the last decision of the House.

Mr. HAYDAY: It would neither add to nor reduce anything connected with the financial aspect. It only proposes that "twenty-two" shall take the place of "twenty-three,' or when the fund is solvent, whichever is the later period.

Mr. SPEAKER: That is quite true, and it really has very little effect, because the option remains with the Minister.

Mr. W. CARTER: I beg to move, to leave out Sub-section (3).
This Sub-section extends the waiting time from three days to a week. It will
inflict a very great hardship on thousands of members who are compelled to contribute to the unemployed fund, but who will at no time receive any benefits. The mining industry is very peculiar in regard to shortage of time. We never find a whole pit on holiday for a full week. When there is a shortage of trade it is usual for the pits to make half-day or three-quarters. Sometimes the miners will have to go to the pit six times for three days' work. If this Sub-section remains, it will deprive miners from ever having any benefits whatever from the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman, in Committee, said it was because of industries of that kind that he was able to pay the benefits that were paid When members of the community are compelled to contribute towards the fund, it is only honest to confer on them the right to participate in benefits when they are unemployed. There are other trades similarly situated to the miners. I do not believe the right hon. Gentleman is purposely perpetrating a hardship upon any part of the community, but if he were only willing he could make some provision whereby those who contribute shall participate in the benefits. There are many penalties and hardships that the Bill puts upon members, but there is none, in my judgment, that penalises them so much as this. You have increased their contributions, and decreased their benefits as much as 25 per cent., and this Subsection increases the waiting period by 100 per cent. We have it on the authority of the right hon. Gentleman himself that we have now 1,250,000 unemployed, and he is legislating on the basis that that 1,250,000 will be unemployed for 12 months. That means that 1,250,000 will have to wait practically a fortnight before they receive any benefit from this unemployment fund. I trust the right hon. Gentleman will respond to the appeal which is made, I believe, from all sides of the House, and do something to remove the penalty which is being put upon a class of the community which is compelled to contribute, but under no circumstances can participate in the benefits.

Mr. R. RICHARDSON: I beg to second the Amendment I should like to draw attention to the difference between the Minister of Labour and the Prime Minister. The Minister of Labour is obsessed with pessimism, while his Leader, the Prime Minister, last week was quite hopeful that the slump in trade was coming to an end in a very short time. I am not sure which advice we are to accept, but surely when the Prime Minister is certain that the slump is passing away the Minister of Labour might take heart and at least give us this little Amendment. As a miner, I know that what was said by my hon. Friend who moved the Amendment is true. The miners contribute very largely to this fund, but they will never have an opportunity of drawing any benefit from it unless the Amendment is accepted. The Government have prevented us from contracting out. For two-pence a week we are able to pay 20s. a week to our own people, but the Government say, "You must not contract out; you must contribute to a national scheme." Then by this increase in the waiting period they take away any chance of our ever drawing a penny in benefit.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Before replying on the Amendment I venture, with great respect, to make an appeal to my right hon. Friend (Mr. Clynes) and my hon. Friends opposite. It is of the utmost importance that I should get this Bill read the Third time to-night, as it has to go immediately to another place and become law this week. The operative machinery has to be set working on Friday. My hon. Friends may say, "We do not want this Bill; we want something better." I recognise that, and have done so throughout the whole Debate, but you will not get something better by leaving everything in a state of muddle. There is a great responsibility attaching to anyone who leaves the thing in the air in a perfect state of muddle. I resisted an invitation to make an appeal to Mr. Speaker to allow me to speak twice, because I felt that my duty was to make my reply complete on each occasion, and as short as possible. I did not succeed, however, in convincing my hon. Friends.
There are two issues involved in the Sub-section which is proposed to be left out. There is the initial waiting period, and there is the continuity rule—the continuity rule after the waiting period
has been satisfied. As regards the waiting period, it was six days from the beginning, in the Act of 1911, in the Act of 1916 and in the Act of 1919, and I made it three days in the Act of 1920. It has been three days from the 8th November last and will be three days up-to the close of this week. We have to-go back to the six days, because in-cutting our coat according to our cloth we have to make such readjustments as we think are fair and equitable in the distribution of the burden which is cast upon us by the overwhelming growth of unemployment which is rendering our Fund insolvent. In going back to the six days, which I hope the House will give me, I shall gain in a year £2,200,000. That is something in the direction of a set-off for the £9,000,000 additional: provision which I have to make even in my financially embarrassed condition to-meet the two extra periods of six weeks.
The waiting period and the continuity rule will undoubtedly affect the cases of some people who are now working half-time and drawing benefit, because undoubtedly there are some who, working, half-time, are earning, not such a wage as one would wish, but such a wage as I think in some cases ought to cause them to say: "I think the unemployment benefit might be conserved for those of my comrades who are down and out altogether." Under the proposal in this; Sub-section this is what would happen— a man could work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and stand off Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in one week. In the next week he could stand off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, thereby making six days. He could work Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and he could do that in successive fortnights and still draw half-time wage and unemployment benefit. Alternatively he could work all' one week and stand off—[HON. MEMBERS: "Things are not arranged that way!"] There has been a good deal of endeavour, and I am very grateful for it, in a certain-number of directions to arrange half-time on behalf of the workpeople concerned, and I am grateful that that sort of thing has been arranged between the employers and their employés. A man could work all one week and stand off the other week and still draw benefit. He could work two days and stand off two days and continue the practice and draw benefit. He could work two days in each week and
stand off the other four and still draw benefit. He could work one day and stand off five days and still draw benefit. He could not draw benefit by working and standing off alternately single days. That would not be possible. He could not draw benefit if he worked five days and stood off one day. He could not draw benefit if he worked four days and stood off two days. To that extent there are variations which are not altogether inequitable or altogether unjustified. I was compelled to meet part of my provision in this direction, and I hope I may ask the House to let the Sub-section stand and to proceed in such a way that we shall get the Third Beading to-night.

Mr. CLYNES: I cannot give any consolation to my right hon. Friend in regard to the appeal which he has made to us to look at this matter solely from the standpoint of his own embarrassments. We cannot in any sense of the term do anything which would appear to be an act of co-operation with my right hon. Friend in getting this Bill through. I recognise the difficulties to which he has referred, the breakdown of the financial provisions of the law as it is. But we have not been without suggesting a course which might have been followed to overcome these financial and other embarrassments. The right hon. Gentleman has chosen to disregard any suggestions which we have made.

Dr. MACNAMARA: indicated dissent.

Mr. CLYNES: My right hon. Friend will find it difficult to mention a single instance showing acceptance of any proposals which we have made.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Ask the hon. Member behind you.

Mr. CLYNES: If my right hon. Friend thinks that is a point of substance which has any relation to what I am now referring to he is welcome to the satisfaction of that concession. The point is that we have submitted an alternative to overcome the difficulties due to the breakdown of the Act and, instead of trying to meet the financial difficulty by increased contributions, drawing more on the still present resources and more particularly on the country's future prosperity. Instead of taking the simpler course he has brought in a Bill raising new issues, and in this instance we are dealing with
a particular attack upon the man who is now only unemployed three days and has a right to benefit, but who in future will have to play a week for benefit. That and many other issues which need not have been introduced he has embodied in the Bill, and therefore we have a right to challenge them and contest them in the time at our disposal. The right hon. Gentleman says that it is of the utmost importance to get the Bill through. We think that it is of the utmost importance for the unemployed workmen that it-should not get through. In that sense we are offering opposition.
I am sorry that this Amendment has been discussed in the absence of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who shortly will decide in the Lobby the fate of the particular issue now before us. We have not been favoured to any great extent with an audience to which we could put the merits of the case. There is still a case in favour of a number of these Amendments, and if we had been favoured by the presence of hon. Members to a larger extent they might have been disposed to support us by their votes. This particular Amendment deals with an instance of that attack in detail which the right hon. Gentleman has chosen to support. He is reversing in this matter a settled policy. Formerly the conditions were that a man seldom if ever got paid until he had been out of work a week. Formerly, I admit, that the rules of many trade unions contained that provision, and there may be some trade unions whose rules contain it still. But the whole tendency of recent years has been to enlarge the opportunity of members receiving benefit, and not to narrow it as is now proposed in this Bill. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman is reversing a policy previously settled by this House and is going back to a condition from which we have emerged as a result of general practical experience.
The real objection is that it does penalise one section of the unemployed who are compelled to pay as much as anybody else. There is equality of payment but not equality of opportunity in regard to the chance of benefit, because the conditions of employment vary from trade to trade and from town to town. The nearer we could get to paying for every day of unemployment the fairer it would be. My right hon. Friend is leaving out of account altogether existing
conditions of money values and the state of all classes already impoverished by the effects of trade depression and continued unemployment. If we were at the beginning and not well through a period of the most bitter unemployment which the country has ever experienced, if privations had not been endured for so long as they have been, something might be said for suggesting that certain workmen should not receive benefit in order that others should receive benefit. But in face of what are still very high prices, the continued short time, and the existing degree of unemploymnet, it is a real hardship to expect people to forfeit three days' pay.
The right hon. Gentleman is not putting this matter in its real proportion in relation to household conditions. There are many working-class families in this country who for months have not been living on what they have got either from the State or are getting from the funds of trade unions. They have been living on the household resources which they have had to sell or pawn. Many have been living on money which they have been compelled to borrow, and at such a time as this, after all the privations which they have endured, the right hon. Gentleman asks us to agree to this further reduction of the opportunities of benefit. We are entitled to hear something as to what may be the particular saving under the provision which is now being discussed. I do not think my right hon. Friend mentioned a figure.

Dr. MACNAMARA: About £2,500,000.

Mr. CLYNES: We are entitled to make provision to the extent of providing that money rather than imposing upon the unemployed the sacrifice and suffering which are represented by that figure. If there is any justification for saving £2,000,000 by this device, why not try the justification further and save the whole lot by refusing to pay anything at all? If it be true that the Government can find money up to the point of that £2,000,000, I refuse to believe that they cannot go further and provide a sum of that kind without asking that particular class to make this sacrifice. We cannot give any appearance of agreeing to a retrograde step of this sort. I cannot quite make out why the right hon. Gentleman undertakes this work so cheerfully. He may have fears
in his inner mind, but, clearly, he is not making his feelings manifest in relation to the reality of the sufferings of the class which, here and there, he is attacking in detail.

Mr. J. JONES: He might share the fate of Dr. Addison.

Mr. CLYNES: Men who are compelled equally to pay according to the circumstances of their labour should be placed equally before the law, and when they are merely unemployed for a shorter period than someone else, they ought not to be robbed of the money to which clearly they are entitled.

Mr. HAYDAY: This Amendment, or a similar one, was discussed in detail in Committee, and I had hoped that in the interim between then and now the Minister would have seen his way clear to make such provision as would render this Amendment unnecessary. There is something more than £2,200,000 involved in it, something more than a mere extra three days. In Committee I thought I was able to prove the possibility of an insured person losing 30 days in one year and never becoming entitled to one day of unemployment benefit. That is the case where a man has a seasonal occupation— not casual labour—and is only intermittently in employment, has no particular fixed occupation, and goes, say, from one factory to another. Such a man may easily have five days out continuously, he may find work on the sixth day, be at work for a week, then again another four or five days out, work again for another week or fortnight, and then have another four or five days out. So he can go on without ever qualifying for a halfpenny of benefit under this six days' continuous unemployment regulation. While the Minister of Labour thinks that this is part of the sacrifice to be made in order that he might save £2,200,000, he will be saving more than £500,000 by reason of the disqualification mentioned. Acceptance of the Amendment will not hurt the scheme, because in all the discussions on the financial proposals of the Bill he has been very careful to avoid the blunders, or rather the miscalculations, of his Department—miscalculations that have made it necessary to have three Unemployment Insurance Bills in nine months. By under-estimating the number which would be out of employment and by under-
estimating the liabilities, it is now necessary for the right hon. Gentleman to ask for these higher contributions and to suggest these smaller benefits and this extra waiting period. But with all that thrown in, there is £5,250,000 in reserve at the moment.

Dr. MACNAMARA: No, £3,250,000.

Mr. HAYDAY: Then £2,000,000 has gone since we discussed the matter last Friday. There is power for borrowing from the Treasury up to £20,000,000.

Dr. MACNAMARA: When this Bill is passed.

Mr. HAYDAY: But you got your Financial Resolution the other night. You are drawing on the Treasury for £20,000,000. You have extra contributions coming in next month from employers, from the Government, and from insured persons. You estimate that with the gradual lessening of the acuteness of unemployment within the next few months you will, by July of next year, have £1,250,000 of unemployed funds, and on that estimate you state that you will draw only upon £16,500,000 of the £20,000,000 you have taken powers to borrow. That is a margin of £3,500,000. Now you say it is very essential to have this six days' waiting period instead of three days, because the financial basis of the whole structure depends upon your saving £2,200,000. I think you can concede this point and make the three days' waiting period the established period. It is true we advocate that it should start from the first day, because even your three days' waiting period is handicap enough on employed persons when they have one on and one off and one on and one off, never permitting them to qualify at all. When you ask the employers to arrange this short time rather than to throw huge numbers on to the unemployed market of the country, some have arranged it in that way for the purposes of their industry. They could not do it possibly in any other way.
Now you have taken six days. We know that when it was part of a previous Act we had people who had five or six periods of unemployment and were never able to claim a penny piece. I suggest that that is the very class which requires the greatest degree of protection and the greatest measure of broad-minded
generosity, if one may put it in that way. The broadest possible interpretation should be put on Regulations which cover those who are intermittently in work. No great concession has been made. The State is getting out of its obligations cheaply at the expense of its two partners. It demands 1s. 3d. from the employer and the workman in their joint contributions, and it pays one-quarter of that amount, instead of accepting a third of the responsibility. If the State would undertake to pay its third share and accept a third of the responsibility, it would be called upon to pay something like another £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 in its contributions. That would be only fair and equitable. The State would then be able to waive the three days, and either reduce the contributions or increase the benefits. The right hon. Gentleman may be anxious to get his Bill, but let me remind him that if he does not get the Bill the old Act must operate.

Dr. MACNAMARA: From where is the money coming?

Mr. HAYDAY: Where did it come from before? My right hon. Friend still has that £10,000,000 under the old Act. That he has not touched. The other £3,750,000 added will leave him with £13,750,000 at the moment. Therefore, there is no great hurry to reduce the benefit, and to increase the difficulties as well as the contributions of the insured persons.

Mr. SPENCER: The importance of this particular Amendment becomes more apparent when it is considered in connection with another Amendment further down on the Paper, one for which I think I am right in contemplating defeat. The object of this Amendment is to bring us back again to the three days' waiting period. The Minister has thought fit to alter the policy of the three day period and make it six. That is going to prevent men in some industries, whose labour is intermittent, from ever being able to get a single penny of benefit. The policy of the Government formerly was that industries should have the right to make their own schemes, and the Ministry is now trying to withdraw that right. The desire to make schemes existed very largely, either because they had a low percentage of unemployment or the unemployment was of such a character that the Regulations laid down under this Bill would not meet the case. When the Bill was in Committee the Minister promised to give
consideration to the appeal made by the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Sexton) on behalf of the casual labourers. I have been looking in vain for my right hon. Friend to do something. It is on the records of the Committee that he said he would look into it, and that if the Treasury gave its sanction, he would in all probability take steps on the Report stage to meet the representations made.

Mr. SEXTON: This matter is being raised later in a manuscript Amendment. Unfortunately the Minister has not been able to accept my proposition.

9.0 P.M.

Mr. SPENCER: My point is that we were expecting the Minister himself to do something to meet the case. This is not only the case of the casual labourers on whose behalf the hon. Member made representations. The whole body of the mining community was led to believe that they could have their own schemes. This is my particular grievance. I, along with other members of the miners' executive, met the Minister more than once, and we spent money and time in formulating a scheme to meet the needs of our own industry, because this particular scheme does not meet unemployment requirements as far as we are concerned. The peculiarity of the mining industry in this matter is that men are very rarely unemployed for anything like a week, unless there is a breakage or some other unforeseen circumstance. If there is a stoppage it probably means working on Monday, having a holiday on Tuesday, and so on throughout the week. A man may work on four half-days in the course of a week. In my own experience I have had in many a week five half-days' work. In these circumstances, a man really works less than half-time, yet he is never off for a complete day. Under this particular scheme it is necessary to have a waiting period of six days. According to that condition you might have a very slack time in the mining industry—you might not actually work more than two days in a week—and yet, notwithstanding the fact that a man in such circumstances may only work for six days in three weeks, he will not be entitled to a single penny of benefit, simply because he cannot show the necessary waiting period. Is it just to force 1,100,000 people
into an insurance scheme, compel them to pay weekly contributions for the purpose of entitling themselves to out-of-work pay, and yet so frame and design the conditions as to make it utterly impossible for one of that number to qualify for the benefit, even where they are working less than half-time? Just before the lock-out, we, in the mining industry, paid an immense amount of money in unemployment benefit. We have been able to do that on contributions of 1s. a week, and, as a matter of fact, for years it was only 6d. a week. Yet we made provision for out-of-work pay, and now the State comes along and says to the workman: "You must pay your 7d. or 8d. and we are going to make such regulation that it will be impossible for you to get anything out of the fund unless you have six days' clear unemployment." To make such a proposal is monstrous. It is a crime against these men, but it will be effected unless this Amendment is accepted. I do not know what the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman is going to be towards the manuscript Amendment, but if it is the same as his attitude in regard to this Amendment it will mean that we shall have over 1,000,000 people paying weekly contributions towards a benefit which not ½ per cent. of them can ever enjoy under the conditions laid down. We have a rule in the mining industry that if, during eight weeks, a man only has two days' work per week, he is entitled to a week's out-of-work money. We regularly paid that during the slack season of the summer, but under these provisions, men may go through an entire summer getting only two days' work in the week, and yet never qualifying for out-of-work benefit.

Mr. J. DAVISON: I was considerably astonished to hear the right hon. Gentle-advance as one of the reasons for going back to a waiting period of a week, the fact that in pre-War days that was an established thing. Surely the right hon. Gentleman knows that during the whole period of the operation of the Unemployment Act before the War it did not cost the State £1,000,000 sterling. This proposal is now made at the very moment when there is greater unemployment than ever and greater incitement to anarchy and revolution in this country. I venture to say that if this proposal to revert to the six-day period is passed, it will do
more to create that feeling than the most blatant speech of any revolutionary. I have heard in this Debate a great deal about sacrifice, but I have not heard one single instance of people who have become rich through the abnormal energy of those now unemployed, being prepared to say to the Government, like the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson) that they want to be saved from the appalling fate of becoming millionaires. If they did that they would demonstrate that they were prepared to make some sacrifice in order to tide over the difficulties of this abnormal period. They could do that very effectively and supply the right hon. Gentleman with all the money that he needs for this unemployment during the next 12 months if they would forego half the interest that they are taking from the Government for the stocks which they hold as war loan stocks in this country. That is another suggestion to the Government whereby the patriotism of the people who asked the men who are now unemployed to display their patriotism during the War could be displayed, and that is an example that they could give to the old country if they desired to tide us over this very difficult period.

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: The hon. Member is getting a long way from the waiting period.

Mr. DAVISON: Then I will not say any more.

Mr. LUNN: I realise it is no use appealing to the Government for anything. They have scrapped every promise, they have destroyed everything they have said they would do, and they have no difficulty in introducing a Bill further to reduce the workers to the lowest possible level; but I think the House as a whole ought to object to the speech of a Minister who tries to show that they can receive benefits by means of any sort of trick. I marvelled that the right hon. Gentleman should make such a suggestion. He said,

in justification of what he was advocating, that to increase the number of days unemployed from three to six it was possible between workmen and employers jointly to secure unemployment pay if they would arrange it so that the three days off work in one week should be Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and the three days in the next week Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. First of all, let me say that it is not altogether in the hands of the workmen to arrange it. It is often in the hands of the employers to fix the days on which workmen and workwomen shall be off work, but even if it is jointly arranged, it is a wrong principle for legislation to be passed by this House which will enable people to manufacture tricks of this character in order to receive benefits from the State. If I may use an illustration from an Act of Parliament—although I have nothing to say for the workmen who do it, except that it has been passed by this House many years ago—the Workmen's Compensation Act does not give compensation for less than six days being off work; it only gives it for the number of days after six days, but if a man is off for two weeks it gives compensation from the date of the accident. That is, again, a wrong principle, and a very similar one to what is suggested in this Bill. I take it that the right hon. Gentleman intends to force this through, as he has forced many other things, but may I remind him that he comes from a class—I remember him being a teacher—that has fought very hard in days gone by against the principle that he is seeking to enforce upon the workers to-day. I feel that the Government have betrayed everything they have said to the workers, and I look upon them as a Government in regard to which one can hardly expect that there is any possibility of either repentance or redemption.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill.'

The House divided: Ayes, 146; Noes, 68.

Division No. 200.]
AYES.
[9.10 p.m.


Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.
Bellairs, Commander Carlyon W.
Butcher, Sir John George


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Bethell Sir John Henry
Carr, W. Theodore


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Blrchall, Major J. Dearman
Carter, R. A. D. (Man., Withington)


Allen, Lieut.-Colonel William James
Blades, Sir George Rowland
Chadwick. Sir Robert Burton


Atkey, A. R.
Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A.(Birm., W.)


Bagley, Captain E. Ashton
Breese, Major Charles E.
Churchman, Sir Arthur


Baird, Sir John Lawrence
Bridgeman, Rt. Hon. William Clive
Coats, Sir Stuart


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Broad, Thomas Tucker
Cobb, Sir Cyril


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Brown, T. W. (Down, North)
Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale


Barlow, Sir Montague
Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Conway, Sir W. Martin


Barnston, Major Harry
Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Coote, Colin Reith (Isle of Ely)


Craik Rt. Hon. Sir Henry
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Raw, Lieutenant-Colonel Dr. N.


Davidson, Major-General Sir J. H.
Hurd, Percy A.
Reid, D. D.


Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Jephcott, A. R.
Renwick, Sir George


Denniss, Edmund R. B. (Oldham)
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Richardson, Alexander (Gravesend)


Doyle, N. Grattan
Johnstone, Joseph
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Edgar, Clifford B.
Jones, Sir Edgar R. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Rounded, Colonel R. F.


Elliot, Capt. Walter E. (Lanark)
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Elliott, Lt.-Col. Sir G. (Islington, W.)
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur


Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Shaw, Capt. William T. (Forfar)


Evans, Ernest
Kidd, James
Shortt, Rt. Hon E. (N'castle-on-T.)


Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Smith, Sir Harold (Warrington)


Farquharson, Major A. C.
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander


Fell, Sir Arthur
Lloyd, George Butler
Stanier, Captain Sir Beville


Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)
Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)


Ford Patrick Johnston
Macleod, J. Mackintosh
Steel, Major S. Strang


Forestier-Walker, L.
McMicking, Major Gilbert
Sugden, W. H.


Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.
Taylor, J.


Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Mallalieu, Frederick William
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)


Gee, Captain Robert
Middlebrook, Sir William
Thomas, Sir Robert J. (Wrexham)


Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)


Gould, James C.
Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J.
Thorpe, Captain John Henry


Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Morden, Col. W. Grant
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)


Gregory, Holman
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.
Ward, William Dudley (Southampton)


Greig, Colonel Sir James William
Morison, Rt. Hon. Thomas Brash
Warner, Sir T. Courtenay T.


Hall, Lieut.-Col. Sir F. (Dulwich)
Morris, Richard
Wild, Sir Ernest Edward


Hamilton. Major C. G. C.
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert
Williams, C. (Tavistock)


Harmsworth, C. B. (Bedford, Luton)
Murray, C. D. (Edinburgh)
Williams, Col. Sir R. (Dorset, W.)


Henderson, Major V. L. (Tradeston)
Murray, John (Leeds, West)
Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud


Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Murray, William (Dumfries)
Wilson, Colonel Leslie O. (Reading)


Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)
Nail, Major Joseph
Wise, Frederick


Herbert, Dennis (Hertford, Watford)
Neal, Arthur
Wood, Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)


Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)
Woolcock, William James U.


Hills, Major John Waller
Nield, sir Herbert
Worsfold, T. Cato


Hinds, John
Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Parker, James
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. A. (Midlothian)
Pearce, Sir William



Hope, J. D. (Berwick & Haddington)
Percy, Charles (Tynemouth)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hopkins, John W. W.
Pinkham, Lieut.-Colonel Charles
Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. Gilmour and


Hopkinson, A. (Lancaster, Mossley)
Pratt, John William
Mr. McCurdy.


NOES.


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hayday, Arthur
Royce, William Stapleton


Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Hayward, Evan
Sexton, James


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Hirst, G. H.
Sitch, Charles H.


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Smith, W. R. (Wellingborough)


Cairns, John
Irving, Dan
Spencer, George A.


Cape, Thomas
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Spoor, B. G.


Carter, W. (Nottingham, Mansfield)
Jones, G. W. H. (Stoke Newington)
Thomas, Brig.-Gen. Sir O. (Anglesey)


Casey, T. W.
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)


Clynes. Rt. Hon. John R.
Kennedy, Thomas
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plaistow)


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander J. M.
Tootill, Robert


Davies, A. (Lancaster, Clitheroe)
Kenyon, Barnet
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Lunn, William
Waterson, A. E.


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
Maclean, Nell (Glasgow, Govan)
Wedgwood, Colonel Josiah C.


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Mills, John Edmund
Wignall, James


Galbraith, Samuel
Morgan, Major D. Watts
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Gillis, William
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross)
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Glanville, Harold James
Myers, Thomas
Wilson, James (Dudley)


Graham, D. M. (Lanark, Hamilton)
O'Grady, James
Wilson, W. Tyson (Westhoughton)


Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Grundy, T. W.
Raffan, Peter Wilson



Guest, J. (York, W. R., Hemsworth)
Kendall, Athelstan
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Mr. Lawson and Mr. J. Davison.


Halls. Walter
Robertson, John

Mr. SEXTON: I beg to move, at the end of Sub-section (3) to insert the words
Provided that this Sub-section shall not apply in the case of a person who is casually employed by the day or half day.
In Committee upstairs I got a promise from the right hon. Gentleman opposite who saw the justice of the case, and said that between Committee and Report he would, if possible, endeavour to find some way out of the difficulty and so make it unnecessary for me to move my Amend-
ment. The right hon. Gentleman has since then informed me that after grave and careful consideration he finds that it is not possible for him to meet my wishes.

Dr. MACNAMARA: Hear, hear!

Mr. SEXTON: That, therefore, is my justification for putting forward my Amendment in manuscript form. The Minister of Labour gives as one of the reasons why he unable to meet me is that he would have endless applications
from other trades. And justly so, if other trades are similarly circumstanced! Why should not other trades have the same advantage that I am asking for the men I represent? I think, however, the right hon. Gentleman exaggerates the position. I shall endeavour to prove to the House that there is no industry in the country or in the whole of the kingdom where the conditions are such as apply to the casual docker employed at the docks of Great Britain. I may have to repeat myself, and for that I apologise, but there are Members present who were not on the Committee, and my excuse and justification for repetition of what I said in Committee is the hope of converting those Members. The right hon. Gentleman called attention to the fact that the six days qualifying period were in the Act of 1911 and were carried on into the Act of 1920, and that he himself reduced the qualifying period in 1920.
Why did the Minister of Labour reduce the qualifying period in 1920 to three days? Because for the first time in the history of Unemployment Insurance over 500,000 of casual labourers were brought within the provisions of National Insurance, and to meet that extraordinary circumstance the qualifying period was reduced from six days to three days. We were not in. We were brought willy-nilly into the Act of 1920. I moved an Amendment on the 1920 Bill, which, if it had been accepted, would have made all these difficulties disappear, and that was that Amendment that the cost of unemployment should be the first charge upon industry. I am going to anticipate some of the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman. I want to call attention to his statement last week that there is not much cause of complaint, owing to the fact that at the present time 14,000 payments for unemployment to casual labourers have been made in the port of Liverpool. There are 33,000 men working in the docks in Liverpool, and I think I am right in saying that not 40 per cent. of these men are earning half a week's wages. It was hard enough under the existing Act for the casual labourer to qualify, when there was a three days' qualifying period. Although the right hon. Gentleman may use these figures of 14,000 men receiving unemployed benefit in Liverpool, if minute investigation is made into that figure, the bulk of that 14,000 will be found to be men who have
worked three or four days in a week. While the man who has only worked half a day or one day gets nothing, the man who has worked three or four days gets, in addition to what he has already earned, 15s. or 20s. unemployed benefit.
I am pleading for the bottom dog, for the man who can never qualify, for the man who goes out on Monday morning and gets half a day's work. That is the minimum term of employment; our contract is only for half a day, and an employer can dispense with the man after half a day. Such a man gets half a day's work on Monday, and is idle in the afternoon. He is idle on Tuesday, he gets half a day on Wednesday, and is again idle in the afternoon. He is idle all day Thursday and works half of Friday, while he gets nothing on Saturday. Therefore, all he gets for the whole week, and there are thousands of cases like this, is one-and-a-half days' work. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that our jurisdiction does not end with Liverpool. We have members throughout the United Kingdom, not forgetting Ireland. Here are these men, thousands and thousands of them, going round from week to week with three half-days work a week, idle the other four-and-a-half days. They are not even able, under the three days' qualifying period, to qualify, yet they still have to pay 7d. a week.
We have no regular employment, like the textile trades, the miners or the engineers. We do not go into a shop and work for the same employer for the whole of the week. We work for two, three or four employers. The man who works three half days a week may have three different employers, one for each half-day. The unfortunate part of the job is that in some ports, except in Liverpool, the employer has no check upon men who are looking for employment. He has to get out an extra card and pay twice over under the National Health Insurance Act, and I suppose the same conditions will apply to this. What is going to happen under the six days' qualifying period? If a man is only employed for the first half of the week that disqualifies him, although he has got to pay the 7d. and the employer has to pay the 8d. Between them the employer and the workman are paying 1s. 3d. for a man who only works half a day during the week. That money is paid to the Government, but neither employer or workman gets any benefit or satisfaction out of it.
The right hon. Gentleman told us, but I could not quite follow his logic, that a man may work one day and be idle on the other five and qualify. How can that be? He also told us that three days this week and three days next week would qualify, although there were two periods of unemployment between them. Therefore if a man works two days one week and goes into the following week and is employed two days, and in the week following two days, that makes six days in three weeks and counts as continuous employment. Is that so? That is not the kind of man for whom I am fighting. The man for whom I am fighting is the one who gets half a day's work and not the man who gets three days a week. The man who gets three days this week and three days next week, at the present rate of wages, which we hope to retain, gets 16s. for each day. That is over £2. Yet, on the top of that, the qualifying period of six days will give him unemployment benefit to the amount of £2 in addition, while the man who is earning 8s. a week is absolutely disqualified. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues that it is no use talking to these men about index figures and borrowing powers. Talking about a limitation to your borrowing powers, you are not borrowing it from us; you are pinching it from us. It is garrotting by Act of Parliament, simply and purely. Here you have a man who contributes 7d. who only works half a day, and who earns 8s. You. say to that man, "You are paying this 7d. to give the fellow who gets three days' work unemployment benefit on the top of his three days, while you are out of work five days and you get nothing." Surely it is not beyond the wit of the Attorney-General to devise some scheme whereby this gross injustice can be remedied and the bottom dog relieved.
Coming back to the 14,000 men in Liverpool—again I am not dealing with Liverpool as one port; I am dealing with all the ports. The date given upstairs was 3rd June. I suppose they can give later dates, but it does not matter so much about the dates. The fact is that in the abnormal state of unemployment to-day it is possible there may be 14,000 applications, even in Liverpool. Out of those 14,000 applications I would like to know how many days the applicants worked, and how many applicants were included
who only worked one day or one and a half days a week. Those are the men for whom I am appealing, and it is their case that I am putting. The right hon. Gentleman bases his extension of the qualifying time from three days to six on the fact that he is going to save £2,500,000.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Sir Montague Barlow): £2,200,000.

Mr. SEXTON: That confession in itself is an admission that he has taken £2,500,000 from the very men for whom I am pleading. That is an admission that he has taken this money from the very men I have pleaded for and it is like taking the breeks off a Highlander. These men have to carry all the burden in order that the right hon. Gentleman may save £2,500,000. There is another very regrettable feature about this matter. I happened to take a long journey by road the other day and I saw some of the men on tramp. They came down to Brighton and I saw them on my way back resting in the ditches and the hedges overlooked by policemen. That is where your extension of the six days' period is driving these men. You are making them chronic tramps. The iron is entering their souls as it has done many of our souls in days gone by. This continual breaking of promises and holding out of hopes that can never be realised is doing more to create unrest and Bolshevism than all the agents of Lenin and Trotsky ever created.
I know what I am talking about. The law of this country says that if you sleep in a ditch you are a trespasser; if you get over the hedge and sleep on a haystack you are a vagabond and a trespasser; if you pull up a turnip in a field you are a vagabond, a trespasser, and a thief. The result of this is that these men have to go on tramping until they come to the nearest casual ward, where they are set a task in return for their food and shelter, which prevents them getting away next day in time to do a job elsewhere, and they go on in this way until they become useless members of society. We were doing something to lift these men slowly out of this state of things by a grant of £1 a week, but you are now driving them back again deeper into the mire than ever they were before.
I do not subscribe to the idea that the right hon. Gentleman has no deliberate intention of doing what he can. He would
do more if he could to relieve the situation. We hear him talking about where the money is to come from, and how often have we heard that cry in this House? Whenever anything affecting the poorer classes is raised in this House the cry is, "Where is the money to come from?" You can find £28,000,000 to provide homes for the Jews in Mesopotamia, but you cannot find £10,000,000 to give these poor men the benefit to which they subscribed. You cannot give £l a week to these men. The Jews of Palestine may be very decent people, and I am not going to decry them or run them down, but I would remind hon. Members that charity begins at home.

Sir M. BARLOW: Hon. Members opposite have been calling for a reply from the Government, and I am very glad to make a reply to this Amendment. I do not think anyone who listened to the speech of the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Sexton) could feel anything but sympathetic towards the eloquent appeal which he made. The hon. Member spoke for the under dog, and he spoke with that eloquence which usually distinguishes his appeals to this House. I do, however, put it to him that the case he sketched goes rather beyond the facts. My right hon. Friend went into the question of continuity and the bridging over, and all the technicalities involved.
I should like to say that there really is no question of fraud, or anything of that sort, in extending the Clauses of the Act of Parliament and what they mean. I do not want to go into those technicalities, because they have been sufficiently explained as to the three days on and three days off, and so on. Admittedly there are some hard cases. The hon. Member for St. Helens suggested in Committee upstairs that the dockers were very badly treated in the matter, and that probably not 5 per cent of them, even under the existing waiting period of three days, would qualify for benefit. I have had the figures looked up as to the number of dockers who were able to qualify during the period from 8th November, 1920, to the 10th June, 1921, and the amount of benefit they have received. These men and their employers paid during that peiod £16,050 to the fund, and during that time these unemployed Liverpool dockers for whom my hon. Friend speaks drew out of the fund
in benefits no less that £141,865. That is to say, that they derived this considerable amount of benefit in spite of the case made out by the hon. Member, that the scheme of the Act was inapplicable to their particular case.

Mr. SEXTON: That does not affect the case of the men I have mentioned. I do not dispute that some who work two or three days get the benefit. My point is that the men who did not do that work are disqualified.

Sir M. BARLOW: The hon. Member's argument was that in the case of the dockers there was a very large proportion of people who did not qualify for benefit. I have given the figures of the dockers' contribution for the period of the benefit they received, but let us carry the case a step further. That has been compared with the amount received by other unions during the same period. I can get the exact details if hon. Members desire.

Mr. SPENCER: But the only figures really relevant are those which will show to what extent benefit would have been paid if the waiting period had been six days instead of three.

Sir M. BARLOW: I am afraid I must take my argument step by step. My first point is that comparisons have been taken, and on the average it would seem that the Dockers' Union has done as well out of the fund as any other union. I am very glad that they have been able to make the fund so available for their period of unemployment. My hon. Friend has raised the point as to what would have been the effect if the waiting period had been six days instead of three. It is a very good point, and my answer at once is that undoubtedly the difficulties would have been greater, but the main point remains substantially good, namely, that the proportion of the benefit which the dockers would have derived from the fund would have been very much the same as in the case of other unions, and I venture to think that the figures I have suggested bear that out. A proposal was made by my right hon. Friend during the Committee stage of the Bill—it was not a promise—that we should go into the case very carefully and consider whether a plan could be outlined which would meet the case of the dockers without bringing in a very large
number of casual labourers for whom really it would be impossible to make a businesslike arrangement. The matter has been very carefully gone into, and I regret to say it has proved impossible to frame any form of words or to detail any such plan. I very much regret that that is the answer which I must give on behalf of the Government.

Mr. CLYNES: My hon. Friend has given to the House two reasons for not accepting the Amendment of the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Sexton). One reason is that there are practical difficulties which it is said would arise if dockworkers were to be treated as a favoured class, and that others would, as a result, claim to come in and share the benefit. My answer to that is that there are no difficulties of an administrative character relating to the machinery under which this Act will be worked, which cannot be overcome by some instructions to the officials in the various centres to meet whatever decision this House may come to. My hon. Friend has for this purpose I believe a very large and efficient body of servants in different parts of the country, and it is precisely in centres like Liverpool, where the officials are more in personal touch with the crowds of unemployed than in some other parts of the country, that there is a relationship between them which enables them to meet exceptional cases. That fact goes a long way towards justifying the belief that if the Government came to a decision favourable to our views on this matter the practical difficulties could be made to disappear under instructions that could be sent out.
I put a point to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour which I think has not been sufficiently dealt with, and that is that this class of workers is above all other classes an exceptionally deserving class with regard to any benefits that can be given to them. The casual worker is the worst sufferer from unemployment. He not only has to endure the ills resulting from unemployment, but he lives in a state of endless uncertainty. He must compete against his fellow workmen in order to get work. It is not his portion ever to have a regular job. He moves not only from place to place and from dock to dock, but from employer to employer. Much has been done to regu-
larise his work, and I think my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens has himself made a very valuable contribution and rendered great service in the direction of better regularising the employment of these men and diminishing the personal suffering which many of them feel. Therefore such an appeal as this comes very appropriately from one who, in his work outside this House, has done a great deal, not merely for individual workmen, but for efficient working conditions in that particular occupation. I feel sure that the employers themselves would be the first to admit that my hon. Friend has done a great deal in that direction, yet in spite of all he has done he still finds himself in the position of having to face men who were his fellow workers in earlier days and who are still subject to these terrible conditions of casual employment. These men constitute a most deserving class. They must pay their contributions, and the fact that they have had, owing to the exceptional circumstances of the last 18 months, to draw rather heavily on the fund goes far to justify the case made out by my hon. Friend. The Parliamentary Secretary gave some figures in which he showed the total sum they had drawn in benefit as compared with what they had paid into the fund. I think his figures did not include the contribution to the fund either of the employers or of the State. I understood that, roughly speaking, the dockers themselves had paid £16,000.

Dr. MACNAMARA: The dockers and the employers.

Mr. CLYNES: I did not gather that the employers were included.

Sir M. BARLOW: I intended to make it quite clear that the amount stated included the contributions from both the dockers and their employers.

Mr. CLYNES: I accept that correction, of course. The point I was going to put was that the difference between what in their working period they have been able to pay and what in their condition of compulsory idleness they have been compelled to receive only emphasises the severity of the hardships entailed on this deserving class of men. The Bill generally proceeds on the lines of reducing the benefit. The 20s. benefit is to be dropped to 15s. and other levels are to be decreased all round.
It is bad enough to drop the pay but there is no justification for stopping it altogether. Yet the effect of this change will be to deprive a certain section of the men altogether of any opportunity whatever of obtaining the benefit. Surely this is a class which is deserving of exceptional favour, if favours are to be given, but, instead of being treated according to their circumstances and their needs, they are being specially penalised and deprived of their benefit because of the severity of the hardships which they have to endure. I would ask even now that their case should not be turned down, with such an answer as we have so far received. I doubt whether my right hon. Friend can have fully considered the case, not merely in Liverpool but in many of the other ports throughout the country. We must think of these men's unemployment in terms of their experience. It is not they who are to blame; it is the fact that the industry has not been adapted to the needs and demands of those who want to work regularly; and the fact that that is their fate ought not, surely, to put them in the position of being totally deprived of the benefit for which they are compelled to pay. This class, suffering exceptional hardships, has an exceptional appeal, which I trust will not be so completely repelled as so far it has been, because there is still a little time in which to consider the realities of the hardships from which they suffer.

Mr. WIGNALL: I am afraid that there is a good deal too much discussion centreing upon one port, as if all the dockers who existed were in Liverpool. There are other ports besides Liverpool, and the same conditions exist there, or, perhaps, in a more aggravated form. The Parliamentary Secretary may hear something about a place called Salford, on the Manchester Ship Canal, and he may come in contact with a large number of his own constituents who are being hard hit by this Clause. I do not care so much about this new Amendment going in; I should have preferred to speak in support of retaining the original Clause and the three days. It was simpler and easier, and much preferable to this. The other, however, was thrown out, and this is a sort of last effort to protect those who are unable to protect themselves. Of course, all the dock workers have not yet come under the scheme, because in Lord Shaw's Report there was a definite
recommendation as to a maintenance scheme, so that every port authority or dock authority should create a scheme, under which certain payments were to be made, and that they should out of that fund maintain their own unemployed. But that has never developed on the lines expected, and consequently there has been a large number of dock workers throughout the country who have never been included, but who will be, because it seems to me that, unfortunately, Lord Shaw's recommendation is not going to be developed into anything substantial, and they will be bound to come under the national insurance scheme.
10.0 P.M.
It is no use comparing this Bill with the old Act. The dock workers were not included in Part II of the National Health Insurance Act, and it is only quite recently that they have been brought in. Their being brought in was not due to the desire of the men or to any demand on the part their organisation. The Government itself said, "You have to come in." The Clause included all dock, wharf and riverside workers. I am certain that, if it had been a voluntary scheme even then, not a man would have joined it. As it is, no one is left who will not curse the scheme, because it is the most brutal and villainous Clause that was ever introduced into an Act of Parliament. I am prepared to say, without fear of contradiction, that a large proportion of these men whom I have in mind will be compelled to pay from January to December, and will never be able to qualify for benefit under any circumstances. It may be said that that is an extreme statement, but it is true, because this Clause is very definite. They must have been idle for one week, in substitution for the period of three days, before they can qualify These casual labourers, unless it be in the seasonal trade during a few months of the year when trade is normal, never work under the conditions laid down in this Bill. The majority work for a day now and again—perhaps one day a week, or two days a week. You can imagine men being idle all this week—which is no unusual case—and probably next week getting one day's or two days' work in that week. The period of waiting disqualifies them this week. Next week their contribution is deducted out of their pay, but they are disqualified for benefit in that week, and if they are idle again
for the remainder of the week they are still disqualified, because, in order to qualify, they must be idle for a complete week. And so it goes on all through the year.
I do not understand what is said about a day in and a day out, and three days at the end of one week and three days at the beginning of another week. If we attempted to argue in that way with the Department, they would have some strong words to say to us. The Act says definitely that a man, in order to qualify, must have been out of employment for one week, instead of for three days as previously. If I understand anything at all about the English language, it means a working week from Monday morning till finishing time on Saturday. It either means that or nothing at all. If there is any other explanation, for goodness sake put it into the Bill and let us know what it is. If it is broken time—portions of a week—say so. The Bill says there shall be one complete week of unemployment to qualify for benefit. That, as applied to the hundreds of thousands of men employed in our docks, means compulsory contributions even if they only work for one or two hours in any one week. When it comes to the 7d., you will sneak the last 7d. out of them. By law the employer is compelled to deduct that 7d. and hand it over, and the man is deprived of any fragment of benefit. I am not putting any exaggerated case. If anyone goes down to those docks next week they will know it as well as I know it. There are hundreds of men there this week out of employment who do not qualify under the three-day period. The six-day basis will cut the whole lot out. It is the most abominable, cruel system I have ever heard of. Give them an option as to whether they are to be insured under the Act, and see how many will accept it. As it stands to-day, there will not be one man of the class known as casual workers, wherever he may be employed, who will accept terms like that. If this scheme were put forward by a public company, I doubt whether they would not all be arrested for fraud—for extorting money under false pretences by compelling people to pay money for which no benefit can be given. This matter has not been given the thought it deserves, the thought it is entitled to, because I cannot conceive of anybody being so brutally callous as to
say to a man, "You have got to be in the scheme: you have got to pay; but we are hedging it round in such a way that we will stop you having any benefit anyway." If you are going to put in this one-week condition, then you ought to give these men the option of saying whether they want to be included in the Act or not, or accept the Amendment. They are nearly all employed from day to day. They are employed from day to day on the Manchester Ship Canal, and a very large proportion are employed in London on that system, and elsewhere. Do not compel these men to do what you would not do yourselves. Do not deprive them of benefit and compel them to pay contributions. I hope you will accept the Clause as presented. Wipe out this blot upon English justice, because that is what it is—a bad, dirty blot upon men who are compelled by Act of Parliament to pay into a scheme out of which all benefit is to be taken away.

Lieut.-Commander ASTBURY: I have been wondering why the qualifying period has been raised from three days to six. I have some experience amongst the dockers on the Manchester Ship Canal. A good many of these men are ex-service men, and I have had deputation after deputation coming to me to put their case and to say how unfairly this Act, even when it was a three-days' qualifying period, operated in regard to their case. We know that the docker has to go down to the dock gates on Monday morning. He signs on, but has to hang about the whole day, and perhaps gets no work at all. He goes down on the Tuesday, and again signs on, and perhaps gets half-a-day's work. On the Wednesday he goes down, signs on, and gets a whole day's work. The same thing follows on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but he gets no work at all, and so he does not qualify for the out-of-work pay, and only receives a pittance which it is absolutely impossible for his wife and children and himself to exist upon. I cannot understand why the limit of three days has been raised to six except for one reason, I suppose it has been done in order to cut down expense. I am just as much against waste as any hon. or right hon. Member of this House, but I have said more than once that it is not the right thing to try and cut down expenditure by placing the burden on the shoulders of those least able to bear it. I trust my right hon.
Friend the Minister of Labour will see his way to accept this Amendment. It will cost very little more money. It will help a class of men who are deserving men, very hard workers, who have only their labour to depend upon from day to day. If my right hon. Friend cannot see his way to accept it, I shall be compelled very reluctantly to vote against the Government.

Mr. J. JONES: As representing one of the constituencies that are very hard hit by the proposition contained in the Bill, I would like to say a few words in support of the case that has been already put up in favour of standing by the original proposition of the Act of 1920. We had a very great fight inside the trade unions to get our members to agree to National Insurance, because the trade unions never accepted this method of dealing with unemployment, but finally we were compelled to accept it as the result of public opinion. As I understand insurance, and of course I am not an expert on the subject, the good lives pay for the bad, but now we have reversed the situation, and the bad lives pay for the good. Now the casual labourer is practically going to be cut out of the Bill in order that it may be made financially successful. Let me point out it concerns not merely people who have to show up every day at the docks. Right along the River Thames there is a large number of men who have to come down to the factories every morning on the off-chance of a day's work. They are just as casual as dock labourers, and they have to show themselves outside the factory gates every morning on the chance of getting a day's employment. Their employment is intermittent, and as a consequence of that fact they may find themselves disfranchised, and they do find themselves disfranchised even under the three days' scheme. Thousands of the members of my own union find themselves always out of benefit. Last Saturday afternoon we had a conference of the members of our union in the London district to consider this very Bill, and when the proposition was laid before them that the three days was going to be extended to six days, we had a terrible uproar, and they said they would no longer continue to subscribe to the scheme, they would refuse to pay, simply because they found the difficulties in the existing scheme bad enough, but under
the six days these were going to be insuperable. I venture to suggest that if hon. Members were themselves casual labourers, having to appear outside the factory or dock gate morning after morning, they would not be so inclined to go into the Lobby and support the proposals contained herein. What are you going to save; £2,200,000? [HON. MEMBERS: "For everybody!"] Less than it cost to open the Houses of Parliament. Casual labour is not decreasing, it is increasing. As unemployment grows, casual labour becomes more permanent. At our docks and factories to-day there are men and women turning up on the off-chance of getting a day's work, and as soon as they get an odd day's work they become, for the time being, disqualified to receive unemployment pay. When this Act becomes law they will find themselves in a more difficult situation than ever. For the sum of £2,200,000 that the right hon. Gentleman thinks he is going to save, is it worth while to put this burden on the shoulders of those least able to bear it? We have to ask our members to pay increased contributions to the' unions to meet this situation. In addition to the increased contributions, they have to pay under the National Insurance Act, provided they get employment, they will also have to pay, to meet the new situation, increased contributions to their unions. How can we ask them to meet the situation if they are going to find themselves almost perpetually debarred from receiving benefit? Therefore I hope the right hon. Gentleman will at least be prepared to meet us on this point of the casual labourer, the man who has the least chance of benefiting, the man who is always liable to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I have been one myself, and I can speak with feeling. Weighing up the difficulties of the situation, the finances of it may be very strong from the standpoint of those in authority, but you are going to lose a lot more than £2,000,000. You have a reserve fund already. It is not a very big amount, but surely you can draw upon the possibilities of England's future, though it is no good drawing upon the dock labourer's pocket. It is no use trying to put the burden more heavily on the shoulders of the casual worker. Therefore, I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to meet us.
It means that those who are most liable to unemployment are going to pay most and get least, and that is not fair play. Insurance ought really to mean that the burden ought to be placed in fair proportions, and those who own the biggest risks ought to have the best advantage.

Mr. JAMES WILSON: In supporting this Amendment, I want to take the line taken by my hon. Friend the Member for the Forest of Dean (Mr. Wignall), that this is not a question affecting the dockers employed at Liverpool, although with that astute adroitness which appears to be the prime qualification for a seat on the Government Bench, I noticed that the hon. Gentleman tried to switch the Debate round to a question that merely affected the dockers at Liverpool. This proposal of the Government will affect untold thousands of men in other walks of life than dockers. Men in the; railway service are going to be particularly influenced by this proposal. In many departments of the railway service those who are permanently employed are excluded from the scope of the Act altogether. They are neither contributors nor do they receive benefit. But all the men who are known to be casual employés are compelled under the Act to subscribe, and will be compelled under this new proposal to go without any benefit. The proposal now made by the Government falsifies all the ideals, all the high motives that inspired the Government and the House at that time to carry this Unemployment Insurance Act. The Parliamentary Secretary put it to us that if there was any section of the community who had no cause to complain at all about the administration of the Act certainly it was the dockers, because, according to his figures, they appeared to have had more in one year, or in a number of years, than they and the employers had paid in contributions. Who were the dockers at Liverpool or elsewhere who got benefit under the Act in excess of what they contributed? The people who got the benefits under the old regime were the people who are going to get the benefits under the present proposals. The people for whom we are appealing are the people who are going to continue to contribute week by week, at least once, and it can be proved that
many will have contributed twice in one week, and although they will receive no benefit they will have to pay increased contribution. As the Government's proposals exclude the casual labourer from deriving any benefit from the Act, surely the fair and honest thing to do, if there is any honest conception in the minds of those who qualify to sit on the Government Bench, would be to say to the casual labourers: "We are now promoting legislation which will permanently and definitely exclude you from receiving any benefit, therefore, the honest thing for us to do will be to exclude you from making contributions under the Act." Are the Government prepared to face that alternative? If any insurance company issued a prospectus and allowed the Minister of Labour or the Parliamentary Secretary to become contributors and then proceeded to amend the prospectus during the period when the contributions were being paid, my right hon. and hon. Friends opposite would be the first people to take that insurance company before a court of law for issuing a false prospectus. That is precisely what the Government are proposing to do with regard to the casual labourer by this Measure.
The ideals and the spirit out of which the unemployment insurance originally sprung was that workmen, employers, and the Government should unite in order to form an unemployment fund so that unemployment might be lifted from the shoulders upon which it bore most heavily in the past. If that was the fundamental reason for the Act, what justification is there for the Government turning round and so amending the Act that the people who are the least entitled to benefit and who are the least qualified to benefit are going to get the most, while the people who are earning the least-wages and paying, in some cases, most contributions are going to get no benefit out of the Act? If I were a casual labourer—and I hope this will reach the ears of the casual labourers—I would see the Government in Heaven or anywhere else before I would pay into an insurance fund out of which I should get no benefit. The casual labourers would be worse than mad if they continued to pay into the fund at the dictation of the Government or anybody else, for they would be paying into a fraudulent fund for a supposed benefit which they know they will never
receive. The case made by the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Sexton) for the men who are definitely excluded from receiving any benefit is entitled to further consideration before the Govern-

ment by their block vote force a Measure like this through the Chamber.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted in the Bill."

The House divided: Ayes, 83; Noes, 156.

Division No. 201.]
AYES.
[10.27 p.m.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Francis D.
Hayward, Evan
Rendall, Athelstan


Astbury, Lieut.-Com. Frederick W.
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Widnes)
Richardson, Alexander (Gravesend)


Barker, G. (Monmouth, Abertillery)
Hirst, G. H.
Richardson, R. (Houghton-le-Spring)


Barton, Sir William (Oldham)
Hodge, Rt. Hon. John
Robertson, John


Benn, Captain Wedgwood (Leith)
Hogge, James Myles
Rose, Frank H.


Bowerman, Rt. Hon. Charles W.
Irving, Dan
Royce, William Stapleton


Bramsdon, Sir Thomas
John, William (Rhondda, West)
Sexton, James


Cairns, John
Johnstone, Joseph
Short, Alfred (Wednesbury)


Cape, Thomas
Jones, Henry Haydn (Merioneth)
Sltch, Charles H.


Carter, W. (Nottingham, Mansfield)
Jones, J. J. (West Ham, Silvertown)
Smith, Sir Allan M. (Croydon, South)


Casey, T. W.
Kennedy, Thomas
Smith, W. R. (Wellingborough)


Clynes, Rt. Hon. John R.
Kenworthy, Lieut.-Commander J. M.
Spencer, George A.


Collins, Sir Godfrey (Greenock)
Kenyon, Barnet
Spoor, B. G.


Davies, A. (Lancaster, Clitheroe)
Kiley, James Daniel
Thomas, Brig.-Gen. Sir O. (Anglesey)


Davies, Alfred Thomas (Lincoln)
Lawson, John James
Thomson, T. (Middlesbrough, West)


Davison, J. E. (Smethwick)
Locker-Lampson, G. (Wood Green)
Thorne, W. (West Ham, Plalstow)


Edwards, C. (Monmouth, Bedwellty)
Lunn, William
Tootill, Robert


Edwards, G. (Norfolk, South)
MacVeagh, Jeremiah
Walsh, Stephen (Lancaster, Ince)


Edwards, Major J. (Aberavon)
Mallalieu, Frederick William
Wignall, James


Galbraith, Samuel
Mills, John Edmund
Williams, Aneurin (Durham, Consett)


Gillis, William
Morgan, Major D. Watts
Williams, Col. P. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Glanville, Harold James
Murray, Dr. D. (Inverness & Ross)
Wilson, James (Dudley)


Gould, James C.
Newbould, Alfred Ernest
Wilson, W. Tyson (Westncughton)


Grundy, T. W.
Norris, Colonel Sir Henry G.
Wood, Major M. M. (Aberdeen, C.)


Guest, J. (York, W. R., Hemsworth)
O'Connor, Thomas P.
Young, Robert (Lancaster, Newton)


Hall, F. (York, W. R., Normanton)
O'Grady, James



Halls, Walter
Parkinson, John Allen (Wigan)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Hartshorn, Vernon
Raffan, Peter Wilson
Mr. Neil Maclean and Mr. T.


Hayday, Arthur
Rankin, Captain James Stuart
Griffiths.


NOES.


Adair, Rear-Admiral Thomas B. S.
Eyres-Monsell, Com. Bolton M.
Lindsay, William Arthur


Addison, Rt. Hon. Dr. Christopher
Falle, Major Sir Bertram Godfray
Lloyd, George Butler


Agg-Gardner, Sir James Tynte
Farquharson, Major A. C.
Lorden, John William


Ainsworth, Captain Charles
Fell, Sir Arthur
Lowther, Major C. (Cumberland, N.)


Allen, Lieut.-Colonel William James
Flannery, Sir James Fortescue
M'Curdy, Rt. Hon. Charles A.


Atkey, A. R.
Ford, Patrick Johnston
Macleod, J. Mackintosh


Bagley, Captain E. Ashton
Forestier-Walker, L.
McMicking, Major Gilbert


Baird, Sir John Lawrence
Foxcroft, Captain Charles Talbot
Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J.


Balfour, George (Hampstead)
Fraser, Major Sir Keith
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. James I.


Banbury, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick G.
Fremantle, Lieut.-Colonel Francis E.
Marriott, John Arthur Ransome


Barlow, Sir Montague
Gee, Captain Robert
Middlebrook, Sir William


Barnston, Major Harry
Gibbs, Colonel George Abraham
Mond, Rt. Hon. Sir Alfred Moritz


Birchall, Major J. Dearman
Gilmour, Lieut.-Colonel Sir John
Moore, Major-General Sir Newton J.


Bird, Sir A. (Wolverhampton, West)
Gray, Major Ernest (Accrington)
Morden, Col. W. Grant


Boscawen, Rt. Hon. Sir A. Griffith-
Green, Joseph F. (Leicester, W.)
Moreing, Captain Algernon H.


Bowles, Colonel H. F.
Greig, Colonel Sir James William
Morison, Rt. Hon. Thomas Brash


Bowyer, Captain G. W. E.
Gretton, Colonel John
Morris, Richard


Breese, Major Charles E.
Gritten, W. G. Howard
Morrison, Hugh


Broad, Thomas Tucker
Guinness, Lieut.-Col. Hon. W. E.
Munro, Rt. Hon. Robert


Brown, T. W. (Down, North)
Hamilton, Major C. G. C.
Murray, John (Leeds, West)


Buckley, Lieut.-Colonel A.
Harmsworth, C. B. (Bedford, Luton)
Murray, William (Dumfries)


Bull, Rt. Hon. Sir William James
Henderson, Major V. L. (Tradeston)
Nail, Major Joseph


Butcher, Sir John George
Hennessy, Major J. R. G.
Neal, Arthur


Carr, W. Theodore
Henry, Denis S. (Londonderry, S.)
Newman, Colonel J. R. P. (Finchley)


Carter, R. A. D. (Man., Withington)
Hilder, Lieut.-Colonel Frank
Newman, Sir R. H. S. D. L. (Exeter)


Cautley, Henry Strother
Hinds, John
Nicholson, Reginald (Doncaster)


Chadwick, Sir Robert Burton
Hoare, Lieut.-Colonel Sir S. J. G.
Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A.(Birm., W.)
Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy
Nield, Sir Herbert


Chamberlain, N. (Birm., Ladywood)
Holbrook, Sir Arthur Richard
Parker, James


churchman, sir Arthur
Hope, Lt.-Col. Sir J. A. (Midlothian)
Pearce, Sir William


Coats, Sir Stuart
Hope, J. D. (Berwick & Haddington)
Percy, Lord Eustace (Hastings)


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Hopkins, John W. W.
Phllips, Sir Owen C. (Chester, City)


Cockerill, Brigadier-General G. K.
Hunter, General Sir A. (Lancaster)
Pinkham, Lieut.-Colonel Charles


Colvin, Brig.-General Richard Beale
Hurd, Percy A.
Pollock, Sir Ernest Murray


Conway, Sir W. Martin
Inskip, Thomas Walker H.
Pratt, John William


Davies, Sir William H. (Bristol, S.)
Jephcott, A. R.
Reid, D. D.


Denniss, Edmund R. B. (Oldham)
Jodrell, Neville Paul
Renwick, Sir George


Dockrell, Sir Maurice
Jones, J. T. (Carmarthen, Llanelly)
Roberts, Samuel (Hereford, Hereford)


Du Pre, Colonel William Baring
Kellaway, Rt. Hon. Fredk. George
Roberts, Sir S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall)


Edgar, Clifford B.
Kidd, James
Roundell, Colonel R. F.


Elliott, Lt.-Col. Sir G. (Islington, W.)
King, Captain Henry Douglas
Samuel, A. M. (Surrey, Farnham)


Evans, Ernest
Lewis, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Univ., Wales)
Samuel, Samuel (W'dsworth, Putney)


Sanders, Colonel Sir Robert Arthur
Terrell, George (Wilts, Chippenham)
Wise, Frederick


Shaw, Capt. William T. (Fortar)
Terrell, Captain R. (Oxford, Henley)
Wood, Hon. Edward F. L. (Ripon)


Shortt, Rt. Hon. E. (N'castle-on-T.)
Thomson, Sir W. Mitchell- (Maryhill)
Wood, Sir H. K. (Woolwich, West)


Smith, Sir Harold (Warrington)
Thorpe, Captain John Henry
Worsfold, T. Cato


Sprot, Colonel Sir Alexander
Townley, Maximilian G.
Worthington-Evans, Rt. Hon. Sir L.


Stanier, Captain Sir Beville
Walters, Rt. Hon. Sir John Tudor
Young, E. H. (Norwich)


Stanley, Major Hon. G. (Preston)
Ward, Col. L. (Kingston-upon-Hull)
Young, Sir Frederick W. (Swindon)


Steel, Major S. Strang
Williams, C. (Tavistock)



Stewart, Gershom
Williams, Col. Sir R. (Dorset, W.)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Sugden, W. H.
Willoughby, Lieut.-Col. Hon. Claud
Colonel Leslie Wilson and Mr.


Taylor, J.
Winterton, Earl
Dudley Ward.


Question put, and agreed to.

CLAUSE 5.—(Suspension of power to make special schemes.)

"The power of the Minister under Section eighteen of the principal Act to make special orders approving or making special schemes shall not be exercised during the deficiency period:

Provided that this Section shall not apply in any case where notice of a proposal to make such a special order has been published before the eighth day of June, nineteen hundred and twenty-one."

Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: I beg to move, at the end of the Clause, to insert the words
and provided that this Section shall not apply in any case where application has been made to the Minister to approve a completed scheme on or before the eighth day of June, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-one.
The object of this Amendment is the same as that of an Amendment moved in Committee, although the words have been slightly altered for the purpose of securing the adhesion and consent of the Minister of Labour. When the principal Act was passed, now nearly a year ago, a provision was made that schemes of mutual agreement between employers and employed should be sanctioned by the Ministry. It was definitely provided that in any particular trade, where employers and employed mutually agreed upon a scheme for contributions and benefits in that particular trade, the sanction of the Ministry should be given. In other words, the principle was laid down that employers and employed should assist each other, the employer by keeping the men at work as long as possible and the employed by not going upon unemployment benefit sooner than was absolutely necessary. That, generally stated, is the provision of the Act which this Clause is intended to amend. To the astonishment and consternation of everyone who wishes for good understanding between employers and employed, there was found in this Bill the Clause in question— Clause 5—which will destroy the results arising from the carrying out of this provision in the original Act. It is not a straightforward attack upon the good
understanding between employers and employed, but an attack by way of a flank movement. There is one large interest which has escaped this attack, and that is the interest of insurance employés. I hope the friendly societies will benefit by that exception. I hope the insurance scheme, which the right hon. Gentleman has agreed to exempt from Clause 5, is a scheme inclusive of friendly societies and all those employed by them. That will be so much the better. I am not jealous of that in the least, but I desire other trades and industries to have similar advantages. In Committee the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Spencer) made this statement:
I am interested in a scheme of the miners. The owners and workmen have been considering the possibility of arranging a scheme of their own; but I do not know whether they have yet made a formal application. That means that notwithstanding the fact that the two parties have been engaged for a long time in formulating their own scheme, of which the whole industry is in favour, they will be debarred from having a scheme which the principal Act would have enabled them to have."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 21st June, 1921; col. 74.]
I cannot find words which more clearly and more adequately describe the situation in regard to this Amendment. If during the eight months the Act has been in operation and the still longer period' during which it has been law, any trade has not formulated and submitted a mutual scheme, that is because of want of due diligence on the part of those concerned in the trade. If it is shown that a scheme has received the mutual approval of employers and employed, by preparation, by agreement, and by submission to the Ministry of Labour, then I submit such a scheme should not be extinguished and destroyed. How is it proposed by this Clause, as it stands, that such a scheme shall be extinguished and destroyed? If, by the 8th June, that scheme has not been advertised, then it will be wiped away. No matter how good the scheme may be for the benefit of both sides, no matter if the scheme is one which
the Department cannot find any objection to, and would like to see in operation, the mere fact that it has not been advertised, or published, is going to destroy it. I hope the absurdity, the unfairness, the injustice of such a provision will be evident, on full consideration, to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour. I have made some concession, in the words I have suggested, to the difficulty my right hon Friend put forward in Committee. There he was asked if he would accept the Amendment on the basis of a "special" scheme, but I have altered that to a "completed" scheme, so that, if the scheme be not nebulous, be not a mere suggestion or proposal, but if it be a formulated scheme, agreed to by all concerned, a completed scheme, I submit it ought to be accepted, and I hope it will be accepted by my right hon. Friend. Everything that can be done in this House to improve the relations between employer and employed is of the utmost importance at the present time—never of greater importance than it is now—and if this House can, by assisting to bring employer and employed together in schemes for the mutual benefit of the trade in which they are concerned, then a long step will be taken towards that good understanding without which industrial peace can never be secured. I hope my hon. Friends in the Labour party will fall in with that view. It is a view that suggests that various trades shall be dealt with and considered in comparatively watertight compartments, each, employer and employed, going together in regard to these systems of relief or of mutual benefit. It is from that point of view that I venture to move this Amendment.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. HOPE: I beg to second the Amendment, and I hope the Minister of Labour will see his way to accept it. It seems to me to be a very reasonable one, for many reasons. The Government, under the original Act, mad practically a bargain which they thought at that time was a good one. They profited by these special schemes by only contributing out of public funds three-tenths of the sum which they would otherwise have paid from public funds for persons employed in the particular industry which was to be excepted. That, they thought, was a good, sound scheme, and for the saving of the public purse. They put that scheme forward, and it was
approved by Parliament. Further, they put considerable pressure on certain industries to formulate these schemes.
The insurance industry, which I am very glad has been accepted—I suppose we may call it an industry—was originally not particularly anxious to have a scheme of its own. There was a good deal of difference of opinion as to whether it was to be applied for; but the Minister of Labour told the industry that unless they formulated a scheme he, by virtue of the power under the original Act, would formulate a scheme for them and force them to have it. That is very strong, because it shows the Minister had to put pressure-on certain industries to formulate their scheme. Now he turns back and says to some or other of the industries that they are not to have a scheme—although they have gone to considerable labour and expense to formulate and make preparation for it—both employers and employés in some of these industries. It does not seem reasonable or fair, under all the circumstances, for them to be turned down, especially when these schemes have-been formulated and lodged, and I am not now referring to schemes that are very much in the air, but to the more or less completed schemes embraced by the Amendment.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I sincerely hope that this Amendment will not be pressed and I will endeavour shortly to explain why. Under Section 18 of the original Act we certainly said that we would encourage people to contract out in particular industries. Suddenly I find myself in this position: to secure the solvency of this scheme one of the things I have to do is to increase the contributions, and I really cannot have a lot of people coming to me now with schemes that are in the air and saying that they want a special scheme.

Sir F. FLANNERY: No, no! My right hon. Friend is not dealing with what I said. The Amendment applies only to those schemes that are practically complete.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I am not for the moment dealing with the Amendment. I will come to it. I am endeavouring to put to the House precisely why I am taking the present course. Under the present circumstances I have to safeguard myself for the time being and during the period of insolvency. We say in Clause 5:
The power of the Minister under Section eighteen of the principal Act to make special orders approving or making special schemes shall not be exercised during the deficiency period:
These schemes are not set aside for ever —not at all—as the Amendment seems to suggest. Where the public faith has been pledged I want to keep my word. In one case—the insurance case—which has been mentioned, these good people had got to the length of submitting a scheme to me and of having had it approved by me and publicly advertised. I felt I could not go back on that. My hon. Friend (Sir F. Flannery) says, "Oh, we are very nearly up to that." What is his proposal? Another proviso, that this section shall not apply in any case where application has been made to the Minister to approve a completed scheme. What will happen? I have had a number of applications already, not as a result of this Bill, but to approve completed schemes. How am I to define a completed scheme? I should say it is a scheme in connection with which a special Order has been issued. Yet, under the terms of this proviso, the purpose of which I fully appreciate and with which I sympathise, I shall get any number of people saying, "We have made application to you to approve a scheme," and I should be ripping up the whole fabric of my purpose here by allowing this further proviso. I really cannot agree to it, because it would undo what I have in mind, namely, getting my fund into a solvent position as soon as possible. Then we can get back to the special schemes. The only Case I have exempted is where my word has been pledged.

Mr. SPENCER: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out the words "has been" ["where application has been made"], and to insert instead thereof the word "is."
I also propose to move to leave out the word "eighth," and to insert instead thereof the words "twenty-eighth." The Amendment will then read:
and provided that this Section shall not apply in any case where application is made to the Minister to approve a completed scheme on or before the twenty-eighth day of June, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-one.
I have the utmost sympathy with the Amendment as it is drawn, but it really
does not go far enough to meet the case. The Government have undoubtedly led us to believe by their policy that we could formulate definite schemes and submit them at any time, and that if they complied with the conditions laid down they would receive their assent. There are societies which have spent a considerable amount of time and money, and not only the employés, but the employers, also, have been devoting themselves to the same end. Now the Government absolutely changes its policy. After we have understood that these schemes would be accepted, they have reversed the whole procedure. It is a breach of faith with the associations. The Government have led them to believe by the 1920 Act that they had a right to formulate schemes, that those schemes would have consideration and that if they complied with the conditions laid down they would be accepted. This is an unwarrantable reversal of your policy and it is a policy built upon shifting sand. If the Government are going to pursue a policy of this character they cannot expect workingmen to have any faith in what they do. So far as Clause 5 is concerned it is one we are viewing with considerable alarm, and this difficulty has been added to by changing the waiting period from three days to six. Under this Bill the possibilities are that we shall get no out-of-work pay whatever. If we had our own scheme the possibilities are that we would have so formulated the plan that it would have met the peculiarities of our industry, but under this scheme we are not going to have any out-of-work pay at all.

Mr. A. HENDERSON: We are discussing this Bill in rather difficult conditions. I would like to ask the Minister in charge the intentions of the Government. I understood that they wanted the Third Beading to-night, but there is no possibility of that, and I would like the right hon. Gentleman to confirm a suggestion which has been made that the Third Beading should be taken tomorrow and concluded at 8 or 8.15.

Dr. MACNAMARA: I should have been glad to get the Third Reading to-night, naturally, but I fall in at once with the suggestion which has been made—that if I get the Report stage to-night, I will take the Third Reading as the first Order to-morrow, in the hope that it may be completed about
the time my right hon. Friend has suggested. Once more I appeal to the House, in view of the fact that I must start the machinery of this Bill on Friday. I fall in with the suggestion to get the Report stage to-night and the Third Reading to-morrow.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: Does that mean that we are not to take any stage of the Safeguarding of Industries Bill to-morrow, and may we take that as an omen of its final decease?

Sir D. MACLEAN: What other business is it proposed to take to-morrow, after the Third Reading of this Bill?

Mr. SPEAKER: I think we had better deal with that matter on the Motion for the Adjournment.

Amendment to proposed Amendment negatived.

Question, "That the proposed words be there inserted in the Bill," put, and negatived.

Bill to be read the Third time tomorrow.

The remaining Orders were read and postponed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Colonel Leslie Wilson.]

Sir D. MACLEAN: Can the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury tell us what business it is proposed to take to-morrow, after the Third Reading of the Unemployment Insurance Bill?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Shortt): To-morrow, after the completion of the Unemployment Insurance Bill, which we hope will be finished by a quarter past eight, it is proposed to take the Housing Bill (Consideration of Lords Amendment), Housing (Scotland) (No. 2) Bill, Greenwich Hospital Bill, Indian Divorces (Validity) Bill, Agriculture (Amendment) Bill [Lords], and the Summer Time Bill. As these are substantially non-controversial, it is hoped they will be got through in time to afford an opportunity for discussing the Estimates Committee.

COAL INDUSTRY DISPUTE.

Mr. A. HENDERSON: The House is aware that important negotiations have been going on in connection with the coal dispute. May I ask the Home Secretary whether he is in a position to report to the House whether progress has been made in the negotiations, and when a final settlement is likely to be made?

Mr. SHORTT: Undoubtedly progress is being made, but the matter is now under discussion, and it is impossible to make a statement at present. I cannot say exactly when a statement can be made, but we hope that it will be shortly.

Lieut. - Commander KENWORTHY: May I ask, on that matter, whether the House will be informed at the earliest possible moment, by moving the Adjournment either to-morrow or at some other time, as soon as some decision has been reached by the Government?

Mr. SHORTT: I think I have already answered that. A statement will be made as soon as may be possible.

Adjourned accordingly at Five Minutes after Eleven o'clock.